SubscribeComing this June, 
Vodafone will introduce an Internet Overcharging scheme for its “pay monthly” mobile customers, dropping “unlimited” smartphone broadband service in the United Kingdom.
From a post on the company’s support forum:
We are planning to introduce Out Of Bundle charging for Pay Monthly customers from 1st June 2010. The reason we’re introducing these charges is to make it fairer for everyone, and to protect our network from data abuse. We’re introducing a real-time notifications service to be completely transparent about these charges and keep customers in control of their spend. No Out Of Bundle charges will happen this month but they will take effect from 1st June. The messages you’ve received this month were sent in error and no more will be sent out from today.
The charging will be as follows:
Monthly bundle customers will pay £5/$7.43 for every 500MB after the first 500MB
Customers without a monthly bundle will pay 50p/$0.74 for every 10MB after the first 25MBWhilst you’ve all previously been used to there not being any Out Of Bundle charging, the current information available online is clear in explaining that we could introduce such charging at any time. The Vodafone Mobile Internet costs page does state:
We’ll keep an eye on things and let you know your options if it looks like you’ll go over your 500MB Flexi or Value Pack limit.
Our Pay Monthly Terms and Conditions already state that we reserve the right to charge for any usage beyond the Fair Usage limit.
At the same time Vodafone wants to punish customers for using their phones too much, the company continues to heavily market the very phones capable of “data abuse.”
In addition to the iPhone, Vodafone now also sells a handful of Android phones — both of which are designed for their data service capabilities.
For consumers who believed Vodafone’s marketing and bought an iPhone or Android phone with an unlimited data plan, the rug is about to be pulled out. Come June, those exceeding Vodafone’s arbitrary data allowances will begin receiving SMS text messages warning them their bills are about to rocket sky-high from excessive usage charges.
Other stories of interest:
- Sky Dumps Usage Limits for Most UK Customers, Gives Away Free, Limited Broadband Service to Others
- T-Mobile Dumps Overlimit Fees, Reduces Speeds for Customers Exceeding 5GB Per Month
- European Mobile Broadband Providers Admit Usage Caps Designed to Deter Usage, Investment In Networks Anti-Profit
- Europeans Reject “Usage Cap + Overlimit Fee” Mobile Broadband Pricing: Unlimited Use Should Always Be An Affordable Option
- Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Verizon Wireless for “Mystery Data Charges”
Hi,
We have seen quite a bit of speculation on the out of bundle charges for Vodafone UK mobile internet users on forums and in the media. We wanted to clarify things. Here are the facts as they stand today:
In June we’ll be introducing a free text service to tell our contract customers when they’re approaching the upper limit of their data bundle. As the vast majority of our mobile internet subscribers (more than 97 percent) never reach the limit they will not be receiving the text alerts at all.
The minority of our customers (less then 3 percent) who do come close will receive a text telling them they are approaching their data allowance and advising them to monitor their usage going forward. At this point customers will not be charged anything more.
If after receiving several such alerts, over a period of few months, customers continue to use excessive amounts of data they will be contacted by Vodafone and advised to upgrade to another data plan to avoid incurring unnecessary additional charges.
Customers will be able to make an informed decision on whether to continue, limit their use or change to a different price plan, giving them total control of their spend.
However, if customers continue to use excessive amounts of data over a longer period of time, the costs are as follows:
Current charge Out of bundle charge
No handheld data bundle 50p a day for 25MB 50p for an additional 10MB
Handheld data bundle £5 a month, or £7.50 with a flexi-bundle £5 for an additional 500MB
Note: 500MB means you can read and reply to thousands of emails, download 24 Google maps and read 8,000 BBC News stories. Today, a tiny fraction of our customers use their full allowance.
All the best,
Espi
Web Relations Team
Vodafone UK