MADRID: Vodafone Spain has created a new unit, Vodafone Servicios, to provide a unified structure and ensure that it is able to present customers with a single bill for all the services they receive from the group.
Vodafone said that the goal of the reorganisation was to simplify and improve the experience of customers by enabling them to receive a single bill and to create a basis for future convergence. It said employees terms and conditions would remain unchanged. Vodafone España and Vodafone Ono – respectively the group’s mobile and fixed units – will continue to exist as separate entities.
Vodafone Servicios will be responsible for all client transactions and communications, encompassing tariffs, billing and customer support. Separately, Tenaria, the Navarre region telecom group acquired by the former Ono, will be absorbed into Vodafone Ono.
According to Spanish daily Expansión, Vodafone stopped short of a full fusion of its mobile and fixed units to avoid a huge increase in tax liabilities. This problem arose thanks to the introduction of a new tax by the Madrid city authorities – with other municipalities likely to follow – levied on mobile operators with fixed networks installed under the city, based on the extent of the fixed networks and the number of mobile customers supported by the operator.
