If you check email or send presentations while you're on a business trip you're probably paying through the nose. Now Vodafone claims to have undercut Telstra and Optus with cheaper overseas roaming plans.
Timed to coincide with an expected rush of business trips to China for the Beijing Olympics, Voda's roaming plans give you 25MB for $49 per month, or 120MB for $199 per month. That covers 38 Vodafone preferred networks in Asia Pacific, North America and Europe.
You may be quivering under the bed with fear at the sound of those prices, but that's actually relatively cheaper than some. The going market rate for overseas 3G data is, to put it mildly, expensive.
Vodafone's previous overseas data roaming pricing was $10 per MB. Over at Optus you'll pay roughly $20 per MB, though there's at least a 25% discount on Bridge Mobile Alliance networks.
Unsurpsingly, even Vodafone admit that most people opt to avoid using their own mobile for 3G data when they step off the plane. The carrier carried out an survey which found that most overseas travelers use the Net and send emails overseas, but they mostly stick to Internet cafes, friend's Internet, or their hotel room Internet.