“Vodafone, the UK-based operator of the largest cellular telephone network in Europe, is to launch its new pan-European GSM service with the name EuroDigital on 1 September.”
The service was aimed at subscribers who wanted to roam throughout the UK and into Europe and who required enhanced speech security. Existing users of theVodafone network needed a new handset to use the EuroDigital service but were able to transfer their current mobile phone number across.
Hand portable phones ranged from Alcatel, Ericsson, Mitsubishi, Motorola, NEC, Nokia, Orbitel, Panasonic, Philips and Sony.
For an introductory period, Vodafone offered its service providers a £125 incentive payment to enable them to retail the new digital phones at competitive prices which they said was likely to be around 399.
Roaming facilities back then were only available in Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Switzerland and Norway, and were followed shortly by France, Greece, Ireland and Luxembourg.
Vodafone MetroDigital
In another development, Vodafone launched its MetroDigital Service on 1st October in London and the South East of England.
Subscribers were able to make local calls at rates lower than the standard cellular call charges of the time. They were able to roam to all countries that offered a GSM service and were able to make and receive calls using their digital GSM mobile phone in those countries.
The GSM system used a Smart Card known as a Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) for authenticating the user and providing the data necessary to access the network and bill the card holder.
Vodafone SIMs were supplied by GAO (Gesellschaft fur Automation und Organisation) based in Munich, Germany.
