The new voice roaming offer, Favourite Countries, will be benefits to those that travel regularly abroad or those that live or operate on borders but will also have appeal to occasional roamers. Customers are charged an upfront monthly fee – EUR5 (EUR4.18 ex. VAT) in France for example. Customers simply select a country or countries of their choice from a list of eligible countries and then benefit from discounted or national rates when calling anywhere in the EU from those countries.
Favourite Countries is expected to deliver price reductions of between 18 and 60% off the regulated Eurotariff (outgoing rates), regardless of the network that the customer is roaming on. As an example, customers of Orange France will be charged EUR0.37 per minute (EUR0.31 ex.VAT), instead of EUR0.59 (EUR0.49 ex.VAT) for outgoing calls (this is a 37% saving) when calling abroad in their favourite country. The offer is available today in France and Romania and is being extended (subject to local adaptations(x)) to the UK, Spain, Belgium, Slovakia and Switzerland across the summer and to Poland in September. The offer will be further extended across Orange’s African and Middle Eastern operations under the name ‘Pays Sans Frontieres’ by the end of 2008.
The second new addition to the roaming portfolio is Travel Data Daily. Customers pay a fixed price range from EUR12-15 (inc. VAT) for 50Mb for daily internet access within the EU. Travel Data Daily is expected to provide up to 90% savings for customers on standard data roaming prices. The offer will be rolled out across the summer months in UK, France, Spain, Poland, Belgium and Romania and by the end of the year in Slovakia.
“Our research shows that customers are not just looking for better value but also for greater simplicity and predictability in their roaming services,” said Brigitte Bourgoin, Executive Vice President, Mobile Operations, Orange. “These new offers, which are consistent in concept but local in adaptation, directly respond to this customer demand.
