From September 23, the price of data roaming in Australia will drop permanently from $10/MB to $5/MB for Vodafone New Zealand customers.

The company points out the new rate is the lowest permanent price offered to customers for casual data roaming from either side of the Tasman. Telecom customers in Australia pay $8/MB and Two Degrees customers pay $30/MB.

Vodafone’s General Manager of Business Marketing, Becky Lloyd, says the move is part of Vodafone’s ongoing commitment to wiping out “bill shock” for customers.

“Vodafone offers New Zealand’s best line-up of smartphones and we want our customers to be able to use the incredible power of these devices wherever they are in the world. We have trialled a reduced rate for data roaming to Australia and the response has been fantastic so we have lowered the price permanently.”

In addition, Vodafone has raised the bar in terms of new functionality that will allow customers to better monitor their usage while travelling overseas.

“Customers are using more data than ever before and they need to know what they’re using and how much they’re spending so we’ve introduced real time usage alerts to help customers monitor their own usage.”

Vodafone will send customers notifications at 2MB, 5MB and 10MB of usage to help them control their costs.

”Many customers simply don’t know just how much data they’re using when browsing the web, sending photos home or updating their Facebook status, so now they will know when they’ve spent $10 on data and again at $25 and $50,” says Lloyd.

“We hope this will go a long way to helping customers avoid any nasty surprise when they come home from a holiday or business trip and discover how much data they’ve used while away. This way they’ll know exactly what they’re spending while they’re travelling”