It was back in 2017 when Vodafone launched the Vodafone Pass, which allowed users to use certain apps without consuming data of the contracted bond. And that sparked a debate about whether or not this kind of bond could violate net neutrality.
After the occasional sentence against this type of bonus, Vodafone was forced to slightly modify the conditions of its Passes, but now, definitely, has decided to disable them. And it has already begun to warn its customers about it.
A Chronicle of a Death Foretold
Vodafone Pass is a service that the operator has offered since 2017 and that allows you to use all you want your social networks or your music, navigation, video or messaging apps at all times, without consuming data from your rate.
Up to now, Vodafone has offered its customers five Passes available: Music, Social, Chat, Maps and Video. In some cases, they were included in the rates, and in others, a small monthly fee had to be paid.
In September 2020, a ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) prohibited the Hungarian operator Telenor from marketing this type of package known as ‘zero fees’ for infringing the net neutrality law, since certain services and apps took advantage of zero data consumption to the detriment of those that were not included in the bonuses.
This led Vodafone to introduce a change in the conditions of these bonds, so that, once the data of your rate is exhaustedVodafone Pass browsing was also reduced to 16 Kbps. But it was not enough, nor was it that, with the appearance of unlimited data, this type of ‘zero rates’ were losing weight in the market.
In Germany, the CJEU established that the Vodafone Pass packages violated the community regulations on roaming and net neutrality
In September 2021, a new ruling in Germany gave another blow to ‘zero tariffs’: the CJEU established that Vodafone’s Pass and Deutsche Telecom’s Stream On packages violated community regulations on net neutrality and roaming.
From Vodafone Spain they assured us that, in principle, this ruling from Germany would have no consequences in our country (reiterating once again that Vodafone Pass had lost a lot of quota after the arrival of unlimited data). But he has had them: we already know the date of his deactivation.
The Vodafone Pass concept disappears in April
As we have been able to verify from Xataka Móvil, Vodafone customers who had contracted Vodafone Pass have begun to receive the following notice:
In it, as you can read, Vodafone explains that the “changes in the regulatory framework of net neutrality obligations” have led it to deactivate Vodafone Pass from April 15. Let’s go in a month.
Since that day, the Vodafone Pass breakdown will no longer appear on the invoice (Until now, the concept was reflected independently from the rest of consumption, in the “Internet and Data” section).
We have contacted Vodafone Spain and they have confirmed that on January 1 they stopped offering the possibility of contracting these bonds, it only remained to deactivate them for those who already had them contracted. And that deactivation, as we say, will take place on April 15. Goodbye, Vodafone Pass.
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