From today, businesses can have greater confidence when using their mobile abroad with the introduction of Vodafone Passport on all Perfect Fit for Business tariffs*.

Available free to business customers from 1 September, Vodafone Passport gives exceptional value and makes roaming rates easier to understand. 

With Vodafone Passport, a businessperson can use their mobile abroad and only pay their UK rate plus a one-off connection fee of 75p to make a call**. For example, making a five minute call from Spain back to the UK using their usual inclusive minutes will cost just 75p compared with £3.75 previously (Vodafone World rates).

Vodafone now has the most extensive mobile community across the World, providing mobile solutions for international companies and great value to UK-based businesses with:

• Innovative roaming voice rates with Vodafone Passport
• An exclusive Vodafone data tariff for 3G mobile connect card users abroad
• A hire service that allows customers to borrow mobiles for international use or for visiting clients and colleagues
• An answering service that puts your voicemail, e-mail messages and faxes in one in-box to make it easy to collect when travelling

Mark Bond, Director of Enterprise Marketing at Vodafone UK, said: 'Customers told us that they wanted to use their mobile abroad as if they were back in the UK and not worry about bill shock when they returned. We understand that being in touch 24/7 with colleagues, having a good value tariff and a clear idea of call costs is of critical importance to all businesses, whether at home or abroad. Vodafone Passport will help business travellers to accomplish this and, for any business with a subsidiary in a Vodafone Passport country, there is outstanding value to be gained."

Vodafone customer, Jamie Collins, a Yachting Consultant for UK Sails commented: "I travel abroad about two or three times a month. It's critical for me to keep in contact with new business leads or to chase suppliers when I'm out sailing. We all use BlackBerrys to keep in contact and although we've made substantial savings with our Sharetime tariff, we have been wary of making long calls when in Europe. I'm really pleased Vodafone have listened about the cost of calls when you're abroad."

Vodafone Passport is part of Vodafone's Travel Promise to give customers simplicity and better value on roaming services.

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For further information on the above services or a business case study on roaming please contact:

Katherine Danby or Bryony Clow
Vodafone UK Public Relations
Tel: 08454 444466
email: press.office@vodafone.com

Notes to editors:

* Vodafone Passport is available on the following Perfect Fit for Business price plans:

• Businesstime 12 months
• Sharetime 12 and 24 months
• Business Caller 12 and 24 months
• Company Caller 12 and 24 months
• Commerical Caller 12 and 24 months

** If the domestic price plan includes cheaper or inclusive calls to mobiles or landlines within a business, these calls will be charged at the standard Vodafone mobile to Vodafone mobile call rate, plus connection charge. These calls are not bundle eligible. Vodafone Passport applies to voice calls made back to the United Kingdom or within the visited country and excludes calls to other countries, premium rate numbers and all data transfers (including text messages).

• All prices are inclusive of VAT where applicable. To activate, Vodafone customers should simply call 5555 from their mobile or call their customer service number.
• Vodafone Passport is available on Vodafone networks in the following countries: Albania, Australia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Republic of Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malta, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.  It is also available in France and Monaco on the SFR network, in Switzerland on Swisscom and in Belgium on Proximus.
• Incoming calls are charged at the set-up fee of 75 pence.  If the call goes over 60 minutes, the remainder of the call will cost 20 pence per minute. 
• Vodafone’s new Mobile Connect Travel price plan costs £50 a month and offers great savings to those customers looking to use their Vodafone Mobile Connect GPRS/3G data card abroad. The offer includes 100MBs of data. Customers must be on the Unlimited (£45 per month) price plan to take advantage of the Mobile Connect Travel price plan.
• Vodafone Hire Services has been designed for those who don't want the commitment of a long-term contract. Customers can hire a handset or data solution, including BlackBerrys or data cards, to work in local networks such as the USA, Japan and South America. Orders are confirmed within an hour and devices can be dispatched the same day.

Vodafone UK

Vodafone UK has 15.5 million customers and is part of the world's largest mobile community offering a wide range of voice and data communications. On the 1st January 1985, the first mobile phone call was made by Ernie Wise on the Vodafone network. Since then, Vodafone was the first to introduce SMS in 1994 and to make a 3G voice call in July 2001. Vodafone UK was the world's first mobile operator to introduce international roaming, now connecting customers with standard roaming agreements in 182 countries, GPRS roaming in over 55 countries and 250 cities worldwide using 3G.

Following the launch of Vodafone UK's Mobile Connect 3G/GPRS data card in April 2004, the company launched Vodafone live! with 3G in November 2004 offering services such as video-calling and music downloads. Vodafone's 3G UK population coverage currently stands at 65 per cent and the network is being continually expanded.