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Clearly forgetting that his company is currently bidding for an enormous chunk of 4G spectrum in the UK, Vodafone’s chief exec Vittorio Colao has described 4G as being for “freaks” and claims he’s not yet seeing any impact from EE’s early doors launch. Colao said: “I haven’t got reports of customers flying away to 4G,” adding “The kind of people who are going for it are technology freaks.” [Guardian]
Vodafone, for technology freaks hahaha that’s the best joke so far
i mean vodafone lol must breathe must breathe and relax
(just awaiting anger from vodafone customers now)
could be a long wait as I’m sure most Vodafone customers don’t read tech. blogs
i stayed with them for a long time, because of early upgrades, i don’t know what possessed me, coverage was abysmal and i live in birmingham so its not like its a third world area
wait… wut i take that back lol
I’m sorry
(about you having to live in Birmingham)
(at least online you don’t have an accent!)
thankfully i don’t have a strong brummie accent, although i do say buz for bus
lol
Of course they’re not, people’s contracts don’t nicely line up with EE’s rollout. It’ll be a slow bleed as EE cover more of the country and vodafones contracts end.
With the prices EE are currently charging, I doubt it.
not charging any more than voda, my equivalent plan was cheaper than the voda one i left and had more benefits
It is not always a coverage area that make people switch… I was a happy O2 for 3 yrs, and switched to 3
because o2 got lousy with their plans and wanted to charge unjustified amount w/o giving any additional value, in fact taking away value along with their new terms after a healthy exclusive deal. Bad decision… Look at 3 around UK, they have the highest customer satisfaction rate in UK. And they started tiny with less coverage!
They acknowledge that internet is a common interface and not only for FREAKS, so they dont punish you for using it for quick bucks. Quick buck customers usually fail in the long run… I am an IT tech and switch many customers who rely on mobile data to 3
and all have been happy so far… Most were Voda/O2 customers 
and they have bills over £300-500 ranges and they are not given any additional value over £10 users over the last 5 yrs, so why stick? Yes they have the most coverage etc, but they wanna treat customers like a milking cow every other year… Thinking oh they never check bills so milk more?
I’m talking about the change to 4g and that coverage specifically. Not any ongoing issues Vodafone might have.
You said “bleed” and assumed that you meant to imply switching providers… Even the roll-out is complete people will not be jumping for joy that quickly, as the burst that balloon with their silly pricing decisions and added value for it to justify it…
Like people say, 4G will run you to your allowance a lot quicker, well obviously, if u give people 1000mb limit at the cheapest which wasnt cheap considering their pricing for £40+…
Since I am an informed “freak”, i will not just jump in there even if i was free/out of contract! There is no added value to justify the steep pricing! See addition to our previous virgin conversation, you see these are the kind of silly management decisions that make companies go bust, not investing for current/new infrastructures… People have good product, they market it wrong, it will not be successful, add a few sour stories in billing dept, fire will just get bigger…
I did mean switching providers but I was pointing out that there was never going to be a sudden exodus, people were always Going to move providers slowly no matter what another is offering (Over and above ongoing offers predating 4g). Because of both contracts and limited coverage. If your after EEs 4G you’re unlikely to leave before they cover your area and equally unlikely to do so halfway through a Vodafone contract so even if it was equal in price to Vodafone (or slightly cheaper) there wouldn’t have been “reports of customers flying away”.
I believe this is what John Gruber would classify as “claim chowder”. Let’s throw this one in his face in a year’s time.
My uncle is on EE 4G. He still refuses to use cash machines and has a black & white television in his kitchen as his main set.
Ha ha, classic
Top tip; insulting your potential customers isn’t going to win you any favours.
I can only imagine he’s looked at EE’s pricing for 4G and thinks it’s entirely reasonable.
Thanks…
The man is an arse but I can see why he’s saying it… I’m on vodafone and the very second I can leave their sorry service the better – and I’m not the only one!
Piss poor reception in central London?? Another outage for 4 days where I live with no apology, message of any kind or acknowledgement of the issue…
He’s just bad mouthing the competition to stop people leaving in droves before they get their 4G house in order. He can see a lot of people leaving this summer once their iPhone 4s 18 month contracts are up too…
pffff…
yep, i paid £150 to leave early i was so fed up of the poor signal in my area
I’m surprised anyone has a beef with this; the guy is completely correct. 4G is new, therefore expensive, and therefore only a handful of fanatics doing….something, whatever… with this bandwidth can afford it or are willing to pay for it.
I like my gadgets, and I couldn’t give a damn about 4G. I literally have no use for it, nor any desire to pay extra for it as a consequence.
Three are maintaining the cost of their 3g plans for 4g use
ee just rolled out like 10 new locations last week and will have another 27 towns by june so its certainly on its way, and my new ee 4g plan with the same data etc as my voda one is actually cheaper
so more expensive….not so much!
well i just left Voda for EE because Voda cant even be arsed to sort out 3g in the town where their main call center is based (Newark-on-Trent), literally no signal in the center of town! so perhaps Vittorio Colao need to pull his head out his ass and make sure the rest of the spectrum coverage is good before he starts looking at the new stuff!!
you might find it takes off a little quicker when 3 give it to all for the same price as 3G..
This is exactly the attitude that puts me off Vodafone. I can get 20% off a Vodafone contract through work but that still isn’t enough to make me switch from 3 which I personally think is a fantastic network.