The service, called "Passport", will be available as a three-month summer trial for UK subscribers, and can be activated for free. Customers will be able to travel to just about any country that Vodafone operates in and tap into the minute and text allocations from their regular plan, or in the case of pay-as-you-go customers, call and text at their usual domestic rate. Data roaming still applies, but come July it'll be capped at about $1.40 per megabyte as per new EU regulations.

As someone who's stuck in concurrent T-Mobile contracts in two separate countries, I take this news kind of personally. Steep roaming charges make some sense when you're jumping between carriers, but they're stupidly frustrating when you're paying way more for services from a different arm of the same company.

This obviously doesn't mean much for Americans (although Voda does own a 45% stake in Verizon), but it does represent a precedent we should all push for. Aside from steep taxes (as in the UK), it's mainly plain old price gouging—of carriers by other carriers, or of customers by their carriers—that keeps prices so high. [Telegraph]

T-Mobile Statement:

T-Mobile is committed to delivering the best experience in wireless to our customers. If a T-Mobile customer would like to use their T-Mobile G1 while outside the country, they should contact Customer Care before they leave to ask that the WorldClass feature be added to their service at no additional charge. If they choose, customers can also disable data roaming on the G1. This can be done by going through the following steps: Home Screen > Menu > Settings > Wireless Controls > Mobile Networks > Data Roaming.

Some third party applications available for download on Android Market require access to the internet and have the ability to turn on data roaming when in use. Customers are informed whether an application will use this feature prior to downloading, but should also be aware when traveling outside the country.

Yeah, you read that right. Turn on data roaming BY THEMSELVES. Holy. Shit. This is a pretty poor design decision to let apps do this.

So there you have it. Apparently, if you want to travel abroad, it is imperative that you delete any applications with this issue. It may also be one reason why the battery life is so poor. [Engadget]