Vodafone personal account: login instructions, profile functionality

Vodafone is a Ukrainian mobile operator that has been providing services to the population of Ukraine for more than 30 years. The organization has all the necessary licenses and permits, and also regularly updates equipment to provide subscribers with official and best services throughout the country. The company serves more than half of the country's population. Existing customers are recommended to create a personal account on the website of the mobile operator Vodafone to facilitate the interaction process.

Registration of a personal account

To create a personal profile on the Vodafone website, you simply need to log in to the system, since an account is provided initially and appears when you purchase and activate a SIM card. However, to gain access to your personal account, you must become a subscriber of the company. To connect to the services of a mobile operator, you must sequentially perform the following steps:

1. Follow the link https://www.vodafone.ua/ru/support/search-shop to select a store located close to the home or work of a potential client.
2. Visit a nearby representative office, taking your passport with you.
3. Apply for connection by filling out the appropriate form received from a company employee.
4. Provide the employee with a passport with an application for making a photocopy. It should be noted that even if you have a photocopy of your passport, the original is also necessary, since without it the contract will not be executed.
5. Sign a user agreement, which indicates the full name of the new subscriber, certain information about him, and also attaches a photocopy of his passport.
6. Get your copy of the agreement and the SIM card itself.

You can use this instruction if you need to change your tariff while keeping your old number. If it is impossible to perform this operation yourself or using an account on the mobile operator’s website, it is recommended to contact a company employee by visiting one of the branches.

Why MTS Ukraine is becoming Vodafone and what does it all mean?

The news that the operator MTS Ukraine is becoming Vodafone has raised more questions than answers. Everyone is interested in who, in the end, bought whom (and whether he bought it), what will change in the lives of the operator’s subscribers, what changes will follow in the market. Finally, what will the tariffs for mobile communications under the Vodafone brand be, when will they be launched and will the arrival of Vodafone speed up the emergence of 3G or even 4G in our country. And most importantly: why is all this organized and what is behind this event.

What happened?

The official version looks like this: MTS Ukraine signed an agreement with the operator Vodafone on “expanding partnerships and developing cooperation in Ukraine.” This is not the first agreement between Vodafone and MTS. The first was concluded back in 2008, and even then the great prospects and benefits for subscribers from this partnership were outlined. In practice, everyone has long forgotten about that agreement, because the only effect from it was expressed in more modest roaming tariffs in Vodafone networks abroad. What prevented “expanding cooperation” within the framework of an existing agreement is not clear from the official version. But everything is explained by the unofficial version. It is worth saying that representatives of both companies do not comment on the details of the agreement, citing trade secrets. According to rumors, which there is no reason not to trust, we are talking about a franchise option under which Vodafone works with some of its partners around the world. That is, MTS Ukraine regularly pays a certain amount in exchange for the use of the Vodafone brand symbols and access to a number of business entities: corporate culture, business processes and economies of scale of the company in the form of low roaming tariffs in the “countries of Vodafone presence”, that is where there are other Vodafone partner companies or the operator itself.

So who bought whom?

In fact, no one bought anyone: Vodafone did not receive any shares in the MTS business. In short, MTS will disappear from Ukraine as a brand. Instead of this brand, the Vodafone brand will be used throughout. At the same time, no ownership rights change: MTS transferred back in February of this year 100% of the shares of its subsidiary to the Dutch Preludium BV, which is owned by the Luxembourg-based Allegretto Holding owned by MTS.

Why is MTS?

The simple answer is obvious: the company is trying to protect its business in the context of the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. And also to move away from the image of a “Russian” company with owners from the aggressor country. The complex answer is more multifaceted and more interesting, although the key place in it is still occupied by politics, which directly affects the company's strategy. The fact is that a significant part of MTS’s income came from Crimea and the eastern regions of Ukraine. Thus, in the current situation, MTS Ukraine suffered a loss of its subscriber base, although the company’s general director Oleg Prozhivalsky says that in the rest of the country revenues have not fallen, and the launch of 3G in Odessa demonstrates an increase in the subscriber base of 3G smartphones by one and a half hundred thousand. At the same time, the West of Ukraine has a bad attitude towards the Russian brand, so changing the sign to Vodafone will be very useful.

MTS Vice President for Marketing and former head of MTS Ukraine Vasil Latsanich also says that MTS expects that the Vodafone brand will be very well received by Ukrainians, since its appearance will reflect the European integration processes of Ukraine, which are so awaited in the country, but which are not being promoted as quickly as we would like. It will not be surprising if this happens, because for the vast majority of consumers everything will look exactly like this: MTS is leaving the market, and respectable Vodafone is taking its place. By the way, Stefano Gastaut, Vodafone’s director for development of partner markets, is confident that in Ukraine the knowledge of the Vodafone brand is already non-zero: millions of Ukrainians have been abroad, hundreds of thousands do this regularly, they all know the Vodafone operator or have even used its services.

Why Vodafone?

Everything here is extremely simple: this is a business, Vodafone made a deal for the sake of money and expanding the influence of its brand. At the same time, the cost part, if there is one, is minimal.

What is Vodafone anyway?

Today Vodafone is a global telecommunications company originating from the UK, where it is the most valuable brand, valued at £27 billion. This is almost 450 million subscribers worldwide, including Africa and India with New Zealand. 20 subsidiaries around the world and about 50 partner networks where there are relationships and agreements (similar agreements with MTS in 2008). This is, for example, what today’s map of Europe looks like, where the countries with direct presence of the Vodafone brand are marked in red, and the countries where there are partners are marked in pale red.

How will the rebranding proceed?

Similar to how UMC was rebranded into MTS several years ago. Moreover, it will be led by essentially the same people. It will all start with branded stores (the flagship MTS store in Passage on Khreshchatyk is already closed for reconstruction and will open, as they promise, in a month). Then new Vodafone tariffs will appear. MTS promises that there will be no coercion, and all MTS subscribers will be able to use their current tariffs. Based on the experience of the past rebranding, it can be assumed that the new Vodafone tariffs will indeed be more attractive, and after a couple of years, everyone who has not yet switched to Vodafone tariffs will be gently but forcibly transferred to them.

What will Vodafone's tariffs be and when will they be available?

The leak of a screenshot from the already opened Vodafone website in Ukraine may turn out to be quite reliable. In any case, the numbers and tariffs for prepaid services look quite plausible: no one will make sudden movements in tariff setting and sharply raise (or even lower) them. Roaming tariffs look especially attractive: after all, paying 30 hryvnia for a day of calls is better than for 1 minute. True, there are always nuances: for this you need to be on the Vodafone network, and not another operator (and monitor this or forcefully choose a roaming partner). There is also a possibility that at the time of launch, MTS will overplay something and the final tariffs will be different. Although most subscribers will not care about roaming, but about the final bill for the month, the number of gigabytes of traffic included in the tariff, network coverage and communication quality.

There is no answer to the question “when”. Intuition suggests that only cats will be born quickly and the release of Vodafone tariffs before the new year is unlikely. February 2021 looks realistic, December 2015 looks optimistic.

Will there be 3G and 4G Vodafone?

Of course, I would like to assure everyone that tomorrow the Vodafone 4G network will appear throughout Ukraine and we will all, in a joyful frenzy, run to connect to unlimited tariffs for 3 kopecks. But this won't happen. According to Oleg Prozhyvalsky, the issue of 4G is unlikely to be relevant for Ukraine until 2021. The question “when will Vodafone have 3G?” in itself can only cause a smile: the people asking it sincerely believe that in our world there are some secret technologies and secrets that are owned by individual companies on exclusive terms. You might think that mobile communications with a different sign would automatically use some other radio waves or other laws of physics. We can somehow talk about work quality standards and corporate rules. But work standards are, first and foremost, about the people who implement them. And people will not appear instantly out of nowhere. Therefore, the MTS 3G network, oh, sorry, Vodafone, of course, will be built and developed, but not as quickly as we would all like. Ultimately, for frequencies at 2100 MHz, more base stations need to be built, since their range is shorter.

• Test your knowledge: take the “Mobile Internet Experts” test.

Is it possible that relations between MTS and Vodafone will break down in the future?

According to Stefano Gastaut, there have been no precedents for Vodafone to break off relations after such a transaction, although, of course, it is provided for in the documents. But the mutual benefit is such that it is more profitable for both parties to the agreement to adhere to it than to break it. In any case, MTS has entered a one-way road and there is no turning back.

What real benefits will Vodafone subscribers receive?

Strictly speaking, apart from noticeably more favorable roaming tariffs and international calls, which a small part of subscribers still use, there are none. I wouldn’t place much hope on the promised “European” service packages, because in Europe (except for 4G, which only has to do with increased data transfer speeds) there are no services that we don’t have. Purely theoretically, Vodafone could try to launch our M-Pesa mobile payment service, which appeared in the very poor country of Kenya and then transferred to countries such as Tanzania, South Africa and Afghanistan. But how fair is it to call a service European, created for impoverished third world countries, where a significant part of the population does not have a bank account, so they are deprived of the opportunity to make payments without visiting a bank. In our country, where Privat24, which exists in a mobile version, as well as Portmone, is used for payments, there are few prospects for M-Pesa.

Of course, I’m exaggerating slightly, and Vodafone has something to help MTS Ukraine. After all, Vodafone was involved in the launch of 3G in two dozen countries around the world. But this is more about business processes, the internal kitchen of the business and the experience of employees, which can be transferred, albeit not quickly. Since subscribers will never see or feel all this cuisine (well, you, yes you - do you seriously think that Vodafone or some other operator has some kind of special “network quality”? In this case, maybe we can talk about quality radio waves, changing as soon as a sticker with a different operator’s name appears on the base station? And then warm lamp electricity is not far away), then everyone will have to be content only with the internal feeling of the “Europeanness” of the operator, and the tariffs for international and roaming calls that will affect, as we all understand very well, not everyone.

Zrada victory? ©

One can have different views on the fact that MTS Ukraine is switching to using the Vodafone brand. Supporters of the Zrada party will see this as an insult to their patriotic feelings. Supporters of victory, on the contrary, following the government structures of Ukraine, will begin to popularize the populist thesis about the arrival of a European operator and investment in the country (which, in fact, Vodafone does not bring; all investments in the development of the network come from MTS). The truth, as always, is somewhere in the middle: first of all, we are talking about business, which, although it cannot ignore politics, always tries to distance itself from it. Of course, MTS will not advertise the political background of such a decision, but it makes no sense for us to look for any political traces in it. Because taxes will be paid in Ukraine, and users will receive favorable tariffs for the very European integration that they fought for.

Login to your personal account

To log in to the My Vodafone user profile you need to:

1. On the main page of the company's portal, click on the button with the little man. Below it is a key for selecting a convenient interface language, which you can use if necessary.
2. In the form that opens, enter your mobile number in the blank line.
3. Click on the “Next” button.
4. Write down the code received in the SMS message in the empty window.
5. Log in to your personal account.

This method of authorization in a user profile on the portal of a Ukrainian mobile operator is provided in order to protect all participants. This avoids the possibility of password hacking, since a specific phone number is required to gain access to the profile.

Important! If the phone is unavailable, access to your personal account will be closed.

To enter your personal account, corporate clients need to go to the “For Business” tab on the official website in the upper left part. Further steps to log in to the system are no different from authorization for individuals.

Account Features

Registered users have access to the following functions in their Vodafone personal account:

• Checking the remaining minutes, traffic, SMS messages allocated to the subscriber according to the selected tariff.
• Top up your personal account without commission fees. You can pay for the services of a mobile operator in different ways, using a bank card or an electronic payment system.
• Accumulation of bonus points that are awarded to loyalty program participants every time they deposit funds into their balance or purchase additional services. Having collected a sufficient number of bonuses, you can spend them on purchasing additional free minutes or Internet traffic.

• Track your spending history. The function is relevant when strangers connect to the user’s Wi-Fi point to use traffic without his knowledge.
• Connecting and disabling additional services. In some cases, the traffic provided by the connected tariff is insufficient. In this case, subscribers are provided with the purchase of separate Internet packages. In addition, it is possible to connect this function only for one night for unlimited use of virtual space. If the client no longer needs some services, they can be disabled through a personal account.
• Tariff plan management. If necessary, the subscriber can change the tariff without outside help. This can be done for free, but there must be enough money in your account to pay the subscription fee.

Important! Your account can enable notifications to receive information about insufficient funds in your personal account. You can also receive traffic end messages.

Unlim 3G Plus

The tariff called “Unlim 3G” is suitable for subscribers who order a SIM card only to access the Internet from their mobile device.
Making outgoing calls in this case is also available, but the cost of each minute of communication is charged separately. Important! The communication price is quite cheap - twenty kopecks/minute. Sixty-five hryvnia is debited from the client’s account every month, and this cost mainly includes the use of high-speed Internet.

The “Unlim 3G” tariff cannot be called unlimited: as soon as the user spends the 3 gigabytes of traffic allotted for one day, the speed will drop to 0.8 Mbit. There are other limits when using this offer:

• the subscriber does not have access to torrents;
• Streaming video is available at a speed of 1.2 Mbit per second;
• if the device into which the SIM card is inserted is used to distribute Wi-Fi or as a modem, the Internet speed will change for the worse;
• A reduction in speed is also possible if the load on the entire Vodafone Ukraine network increases.

SMS and MMS messages to all Ukrainian numbers from the “Unlim 3G” tariff will cost twenty kopecks per message.

The cost of the tariff version called “Unlim 3G Plus” is ninety hryvnia per month. This package can be fully used to meet all the daily needs of the subscriber. The subscription fee includes the following services:

• unlimited within the Vodafone Ukraine network;
• one hundred minutes to make free calls to Ukrainian numbers for a month;
• unlimited 3G internet.

The difference between this version of the tariff and the one described above is the minutes for calls to subscribers of other operators and unlimited within its own network. All other options and restrictions are identical to those included in the “Unlim 3G” tariff package.