Vodafone launches limited mobile services

Vodafone Acasa does not require connecting a terminal to a landline, as it also relies on GSM. The service can be activated immediately, by plug&play, with a phone and a compatible SIM card.

“Vodafone Acasa offers fixed phone users a new experience, currently available only within mobile networks,” according to Vodafone Romania’s President and CEO Liliana Solomon. Clients will be able to receive and send SMSs on fixed phones and will have free access to the cost control and customer relations services, she added.

Vodafone Acasa phones will have a 0372 code, followed by six figures. The service will initially be available on Sagem MyH10 terminals, offered free to clients upon activating their Vodafone Acasa subscriptions, except those opting for the lowest subscription, worth $4/per month, for which the phone costs $6.

Calls made within Vodafone Acasa and to other national landline phone services will cost $0.05/per minute, while calls made to mobile services will be charged at $0.19/per minute, according to a company press release.

Vodafone’s limited mobile service targets clients who want their phones installed immediately and with no additional costs. The company had some 7.9 million clients by the end of March 2007.

The new service comes a month after Romania’s largest landline service, Romtelecom, begam a campaign to preserve clients. After years of losing subscribers to other fixed phone networks, the company launched a new subscription, worth 37 RON/per month (some €13), which includes free long-distance calls within the Romtelecom network. Mobile phone
service provider Zapp also has a limited mobile network, FixTel, launched
in 2004.

“Vodafone Acasa offers fixed phone users a new experience, currently available only within mobile networks'' Liliana Solomon President and CEO,Vodafone Romania