Internet all over the Europe

[wolfbln]

Now, there's more hope: Vodafone Germany has now announced to slash (almost) all roaming surcharges in the EU from April 30th for prepaid plans.

This seems to be the first Vodafone network to do so and probably the first provider. Up to now we only had some providers like Three UK that included some, but not all EU countries in their "roam like home" plans.

Vodafone gave some ambiguous announcements in the last days and there was some confusion over the week end, but now final details have been released. They as follows:

You can use the included domestic (German) allowances of their CallYa Smartphone prepaid plans without any surcharges in all EU (plus EEA) countries from April 30th. Their base plan called "Smartphone Special" includes 750 MB and 200 mins/SMS valid for 28 days sold at 9.99€. These allowances can now be used abroad too without additional fees. Starter SIMs are available for as low as 3€ on ebay.de with 10€ credit preloaded, enough to book a first base plan. German SIM cards are still freely available. They need to be activated online on any given German address. According to Teltarif info the add-on packs of 2 GB for 19.99€, 750 MB for 9.99€ or 250 MB for 4.99€ can be used likewise abroad, but this is not yet confirmed.

Some known restrictions:
- Switzerland is not included - it' not part of the EU, but some provider include them
- Voice calls and SMS only within the roaming country and to Germany. This is a drawback for non-Germans, but all data is inlcluded and VoIP calls and tethering possible
- network selectin is mostly restricted to Vodafone networks and partners, but partly in 4G/LTE depending on country in up to 50 Mbit/s

Most of these price cuts I would have only expected after the next roaming rule change due in June 2017. So there is hope, that other providers will follow before. This is the first major operator to go to 0 for surcharges for prepaid in all of the EU/EEA, most will charge 6ct/MB, some even 23ct/MB from May 2016.

So I'll need to revise my disappointed post from some days ago. If we are lucky, roaming surcharges will fall sooner in Europe. As the situation is still very confusing, I'd like to collect more offers like these, to be added in the update of the prepaid data WIKI as valid "roaming SIM" options.