Vodafone Home Zone

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Finally, Vodafone did what I mentioned in my previous blog post:

Mauro Sentinelli, former General Manager of TIM in Italy (and now “deputy chairman” of GSM Association),
once told me that mobile operators don’t really need VoIP yet, because
for them it is just a matter of rates. A mobile operator can optimize
its rates in order to satisfy its customers needs, sometimes even
offering the same rates as fixed phones when users are into the cell
where his home is.

Vodafone “Home Zone” consists in a very competitive rate to call any landline phone, using your mobile as if it was an fixed telephone while you are at home. This means that we are looking at the beginning of the war between Vodafone and Telecom Italia. And I really appreciate this move. They just lower the rate as you are at home, because they recognize you are registered on the mobile cell near your house.
Here are the conditions:

• 0 €cent / minute to any landline phone in italy from home or your neighbourhood, up to 1500 minutes/month (hey, 1500 minutes are a lot of time!)
• 15 €cent as call setup
• 9,99€ monthly fee

To compare this offering to the other offers you have to know that:

• Telecom Italia monthly fee is 14,57 €  / month, without any minute included
• average rate to an italian fixed phone is

There is a big issue, related to the DSL connection. As I already commented before, now it is almost impossible to get an “only-data” connection (ADSL) at home without paying Telecom Italia monthly fee.

In my opinion, the two big points to solve (and I underlined them
during my speech) are the following: the first one is that it is very
difficult to discuss (disgraceful?) on a VoIP regulation made to
“protect users” and “regulate a far-west condition encouraging
competion”, if there is still a very big issue regarding the regulation
of the broadband access: the incumbent (Telecom Italia) in Italy asks
for 10€ to all the wholesale DSL operators in Italy, if they sell a
so-called “naked” ADSL, that is an ADSL without the need of having a
fixed line contract with Telecom Italia…and this fact creates a big
problem in the competitive scenario.

So, if you choose Vodafone’s offering and abandon your fixed line, you have to deal with this issue. Otherwise, you need something like an UMTS flat rate to use your mobile phone to connect to the internet. It is an option, but such a flat rate doesn’t exist yet in Italy.

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