Vodafone Malta announced on Friday that it has slashed its roaming rates for EU countries by an average of 40 per cent when compared to Summer 2005. This is possible due to the launch of its new Vodafone World rate plan. This plan is available for both pre-paid and post-paid customers and has no peak and off-peak rates. These reductions on roaming calls apply to both Vodafone Preferred and non-preferred networks within the EU27 footprint. Customers choosing the Vodafone preferred networks would benefit from even further reductions.

With Vodafone World customers will benefit from one low and simple rate at 30c/min on pre-paid and 28c/min on post-paid when calling Malta from anywhere in the EU simply by selecting the Vodafone preferred network.

With Vodafone World making calls abroad is now simpler than ever before and the rates are much easier to understand. For example a call when roaming in the UK had over 100 price points and today a customer need only remember four price points at any time of the day. These new simplified rates are available for all prepaid and postpaid customers. Moreover, customers can save more money if they make calls from one of the 47 Vodafone partner networks.

Vodafone also introduced the Infotext service whereby customers can check roaming call rates by sending an SMS containing the words FROM + the name of the visiting country to 50915791 prior to their departure from Malta. This service will be free of charge locally and will be charged at the standard applicable SMS rates while roaming. Customers will receive an SMS with rates for outgoing and incoming calls on preferred and other networks where applicable. Pre-paid customers will also receive the cost per SMS.

In order to simplify the pricing structure, the countries have been grouped into five zones instead of nine zones, with Zone 1 referring to all the EU countries. A list of all the zones and applicable tariffs including Vodafone’s preferred networks is available on Vodafone’s website at www.vodafone.com.mt.

Furthermore, with effect from 1 July, Vodafone Malta will be launching a new data roaming tariff whereby customers will be able to surf the Internet, check e-mail and access their business network when roaming abroad for a flat rate fee of only Lm5.15 for every day of use. The tariff will be available to all customers with mobile-enabled laptops and will significantly lower the cost of data roaming for business customers and consumers alike.