Vodafone offers in-flight roaming

Vodafone, the mobile telephony operator launched Thursday the roaming service which allows its customers to use their mobile phones while flying, the company announced.

Thus, Vodafone Romania"s customers, subscribers as well as the users of the Vodafone pre-paid cards and the users of Vodafone 2in1, can make calls and can send text messages on several flights of the companies Emirates Airline and Malaysian Airlines.

The tariff for an in-flight call is 2,65 euro /minute, plus a per-call connection fee of 0,63 Euros. Received calls will cost 2,2 Euros/minute, and Vodafone and Vodafone 2in1 card users will pay 0,89 Euros credit/minute. The fee for sent text messages will cost 0,75 Euros/SMS for subscribers and 0,45 Euros/SMS for owners of prepaid Vodafone owners. The above rates do not include VAT.

According to Vodafone, text messages can be received free of charge.

Vodafone Romania customers will be able to use their cell phones in-flight after the plane reaches the cruise altitude, by selecting the AeroMobile network.

The new in-flight roaming service is provided to Vodafone Romania customers following an agreement with Telenor Mobile Aviation AS (TMA).

Currently, the air roaming service is available for twenty-two of Emirates Airline"s aircraft, as well as on one Malaysian Airlines" aircraft, which have the necessary communication equipment. These 23 aircraft cover Australia and a slew of other European and Asian locations, including China and Japan.

More destinations will be added to the roster as more agreements with other airlines are concluded and the communications system is installed on their aircraft. Moreover, Vodafone Romania will soon expand the in-flight roaming offer to provide its clients access to GPRS data services.

Currently, Vodafone Romania customers can use the roaming service for GSM communications in over 140 countries/territories, through 305 operators, and the GPRS services are available in 72 countries/territories, through 139 operators.

Vodafone Romania, a division of Vodafone Group Plc., had 9.516.000 customers, on September 30th 2008. Vodafone is the world"s largest group of mobile telecommunications, with divisions in 27 countries across five continents and over 40 affiliated networks all over the world. On September 30th 2008, Vodafone had 280 million customers all over the world.