Vodafone is to stop charging roaming charges this summer and may even cut the price of calling abroad from the UK. Roaming charges have provided enormous comfort to the mobile carriers, providing lucrative source of revenue in a market where it’s nigh on impossible to make money from voice calls. Many in the industry are asking: how can they?

From June 1, pay as you go and pay monthly consumer customers can talk, text and send picture messages from over 35 countries across Europe this summer for the same price as at home. From tomorrow (May 15) calls from the UK to friends and family overseas from as little as 5 pence per minute. Businesses could also benefit from cost savings on roaming, says Vodafone UK.
From 1 June to the end of August, Vodafone Pay as you Go and Pay Monthly customers will be able to call, text and send picture messages to friends and family back home from over 35 countries knowing that it will cost exactly the same as if they were in the UK. So a customer on a plan with 600 minutes and unlimited texts who opts in to Vodafone Passport would use these minutes and texts when they are on holiday with no extra charges.  
“With our Vodafone Passport promotion you can sit on the beach with your phone switched on knowing  you can take and make a call just as you would if you were in your back garden,” says Ian Shepherd consumer director for Vodafone UK. “Vodafone International is good news for the millions of UK pay as you go customers as they can now make calls to family and friends around the world from just 5p.”
The move got a lukewarm reaction from consumers. “Should I be grateful,” said Mark Murphy, a PR man from Croydon who regularly travels abroad, “I think the roaming charges were pretty rum in the first place.”

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