COVID-19: What Vodafone is doing to help

Vodafone has taken a number of actions to help during the COVID-19 outbreak, both at a group and individual operating company level. Vodafone has:

• Released a five point plan which aims to help the communities it supports across Europe, running until 1 September, and can be extended if circumstances demand it. This commitment to governments comprises:
  1. Maintaining the quality of service of networks. (Click here for a post from Vodafone UK’s CTO which explains what’s being done to support traffic of various types, as demand increases and relocates from cities.)
  2. Providing network capacity and services for critical government functions
  3. Improving dissemination of information to the public. In the UK this has seen removing data charges to all mobile customers accessing the NHS health information websites, and highlighting that calls to the NHS helpline 111 are already free on all networks.
  4. Facilitating working from home and helping the small and micro businesses within our Supply Chain
  5. Improving governments’ insights into people’s movements in affected areas. Joakim Reiter, Group External Affairs Director, Vodafone Group, has written more about how the company is doing that here.
• Worked to repurpose Vodafone’s Foundation’s ‘DreamLab’ app, which currently uses the data processing power of mobile phones as they are being charged, to power cancer research. The Foundation has made a donation to enable DreamLab to support antiviral research.
• Reduced the risk to vulnerable customers by providing Vodafone Visual Support through TechSee. This enables engineers to see through the customer’s mobile phone camera so they can guide customers to a solution to keep them connected without the need for an engineer to visit their home.
• Partnered with No Isolation in the UK to distribute KOMP units (a one-button computer) to elderly or isolated people to help them stay connected with friends and family. The units are designed for people with little to no technology experience and can receive photos, messages and video calls. Vodafone has gifted mobile WiFi units and SIM cards with free connectivity until the end of June.

Learn more about Vodafone’s five point plan and other initiatives here.