Vodafone has reduced voice roaming rates for calls within the EU (Zone 1) of its Vodafone World roaming tariff plans. Outgoing calls will be reduced from €0.58 to €0.53 a minute including VAT; incoming calls from €0.28 to €0.25 a minute, including VAT. Vodafone said these rates are below the requirements of the EU directive.

Rates are valid if calls are originated and terminated within EU member states. Should calls terminate outside the EU, different price points are applicable according to the selected network.

The rates are applicable to all Vodafone pre-paid and post-paid customers.

Vodafone has also reduced its Vodafone Passport call set-up charge while roaming on EU Vodafone Passport networks. Customers registering to Vodafone Passport can call home or the visited country at the rate of €0.23 per minute. Calls to other countries will be charged at the applicable international calling rate. While roaming on EU Passport Networks, a set-up charge of €1 is applicable per call, whereas the connection fee of €1.16 is applicable for non-EU roaming Passport Networks.

While roaming on EU Vodafone Passport Networks, customers are charged €0.70 per 10 minutes of calls received. The rate for calls received while roaming on non-EU Passport Networks is €1.16 per 10 minutes of calls.

Go's 'Pay Monthly' clients making calls within the EU are now charged €0.54 per minute; Go's 'Pay As You Go' subscribers are charged €0.53 per minute. While roaming on any EU network, incoming calls to Go subscribers will be charged at €0.26 per minute (Pay Monthly) and €0.25 per minute (Pay As You Go). All rates include VAT.

European mobile phone operators are now able to charge customers up to €0.22 per minute (down from €0.24) for receiving a call while roaming in the EU. The EU's Roaming Regulation, which came into force last summer and which expires in 2010, foresees a third and final lowering of the price caps - to €0.43 and €0.19 respectively - on August 30, 2009.

The European Commission introduced price caps after studies found that European mobile phone operators were applying excessive roaming charges to their customers - on average €1.15 per minute.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.