mobile data costs far far too much in New Zealand

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taniwha

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#3364 2-Feb-2005 11:41

i thought i'd compare with some friends overseas, see what the price of data is

here in NZ, GPRS casual rate is 10c/10kbyte.
you can purchase a tiny 3MB/month for $10
through to a more reasonable 250MB/month for $150.00
http://vodafone.co.nz/pricing_plans/mobile_data.jsp?item=mobile_data

compare to the US, unlimited GPRS is available from several telcos for US$20/month
unlimited EDGE from at least one telco for US$80/month
unlimited CDMA data from sprint is US$15

of those i asked, no-one knew the casual rate, because it's cheap enough that you might as well go unlimited.

What are other people paying for mobile data???

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#12412 2-Feb-2005 15:58

It is the price you have to pay for living in a small country. Voda are investing $400M on UMTS to service an installed base of 1.5M customers. That is a lot of money invested and they will need to get a return.

You can not compare NZ to the USA where Verizon spent something like $1bn to role out EVDO to service probably 30M customers - you do the math.

Your average bean counter would tell you that investing in telecommunications in NZ is not a good or very wise business.

What you also don't understand is that carriers in the US (Verizon, Sprint, Cingular, etc) have massive old billing systems designed to bill based on time not volume. They all offer fixed price data because they are unable to bill for usage.

Would you rather still have a choice of TDMA or GSM? Or funky handsets/services and new networks like EVDO and UMTS?

taniwha

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#12413 2-Feb-2005 16:11

be nice jama... "do not understand".. can you phrase that a little nicer? :-)

I'm still waiting for the those funky handsets/services.... ( unless you mean caller tunes?? :-P )
Seems my choices is CDMA (stunted mixed-up market) or GSM (funky stuff built on aging & slow protocol)

cdma data is cheaper - but i can't find a handset that will let me do that. Telecom seem to be focused on laptop data only. I want applications in the phone (such as a simple email client), and/or connectivity to my PDA. something i've been doing for half a decade over slow slow gprs... cdma has more potential - but it still hasn't happened!

i still think data rates in this country could fall alot further - and they need to before the average phone owner will consider using it. I know many cellphone users are afraid of their wap browser because of the high costs they fear they will be charged.

but i ended my post on a question... what are the rates in other countries?

Jama

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#12415 2-Feb-2005 16:59

What about a Harrier? The perfect broad band PDA. Use it as a Bluetooth modem or download your email at high speed.

I think you will find that some European carriers still charge around $30 p/meg. Also, those 'unlimited' prices you quoted all have 'fair usage caps' so they are not really unlimited.

Yes - pricing could be lower but that will take a while.

Services - video messaging, streaming video and push-to-talk. There will be java apps sometime soon that will lwt you get email etc. It is coming.....

BTW - I think my Sanyo 7400 is quite funky.

taniwha

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#12416 2-Feb-2005 17:32

sanyo 7400 - DJ jungle juice's phone :-)
yeah - okay ... that phone could be labelled "funky". I like to see telecom get some more services going that make use of the phone's Multimedia and data capabilites.

I'm not a big fan of smartphones. They're just too big to be pocketable, and that's where i want to keep my phone.
and I don't want an imprint of my cheek on my pda's screen.

the treo 600 is pretty good, it's small enough to be a phone, not just a pda that happens to make phone calls.
Unfortunately it took such a long time getting the cdma 600 released here and now the GSM 650 is out a few weeks later.

Despite the cheaper data, (and i'm not a big fan of vodafone) i couldn't downgrade to the treo 600. It has a low res screen and low in memory compared to the tunsten T3 i've had for a while.. but okay.. treo 600 is "funky".

i'm a hoping the treo650 comes out soon enough, as it's already on sprint.. the harrier arrived here pretty promptly.

the nokia 6255, which i'm anxiously awaiting, is a potential for the "funky" label - but it's taking so long to launch that i'm wondering what's gone wrong with it...

taniwha

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#12417 2-Feb-2005 18:07

here's what i can find on telecom data prices...
http://www.telecom.co.nz/content/0,3900,202032-201933,00.html#plans

what i can't work out is: is that for CDMA data or the t3g EVDO???

$8/MB for casual use
or $10/month for access + $1/MB
a bit better better than vodafone's casual rates, and at higher speed.

and $99.00 for 200MB per month
(that pretty close to than vodafone's $150 for 250MB).

but telecom go a little higher with 500MB for $200 per month.

i guess you'd be pushing pretty hard to get 500MB through a GPRS connection.

cat-mince

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#12422 2-Feb-2005 22:46

It's for EVDO

EVDO = Mobile BroadBand
CDMA Data = Mobile Jetstream

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#12426 2-Feb-2005 23:33

I'd use GPRS and various other services if they were priced cheaper. I feel that the 10c/10kb is a bit excessive and even at the moment in China on roaming 30c/10kb is a bit excessive also.

As a result it affects how much I'd spend on GPRS.

If the GPRS usage was priced at $1/mb, I would probably use around $40 a month if not more. However currently I'm lucky (or not :P )if I even spend $5. With the introduction of the 45c/minute callling, I throw a lot more money at that rather than waiting till I get to the flat to call them from my landline.

However here in China, prices are/seem to be lower, so I use GPRS a lot more and call a lot more too, on my local SIM (Chinamobile).

I do look forward to getting back to NZ and looking at the changes with VF live without being charged extra GPRS usage, and taking advantage of their free service access (I'll quit all the subs before it ends as I'm a cheapstake)

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Jama

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#12429 3-Feb-2005 08:24

Prices are the same for Mobile Jetsream and Mobile Broadband

taniwha - the hold up with getting the Treo 600 was due to demand in the USA. PalmOne were not interested in dealing with CDMA carriers outside the US. Telecom took a Bell Mobility build and modified for NZ. I agree the Treo 650 is the one - I am not sure how long that will take but I did hear it may be April.

The 6255 has a lot of bugs waiting on Nokia to fix the bugs is the hold up.

I guess I just use my Harrier for data (modem) and email, thats about it. I use my Sanyo 7400 for voice/text. I prefer to have 2 devices.

taniwha

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#12432 3-Feb-2005 09:55

the harrier is $1000
the sanyo 7400 is $600

that's a lot of money...... and there's a bit of redundancy between those 2 rather large devices that your carry around.

The 7400 is barely pocketable - the harrier looks to be jacket pocket only.

and there's no method to get them to talk to each other, except maybe sms or email.

why has cdma had such an adversion to infared and bluetooth? it's old technology now but the first infared i saw on telecom was that nokia 6585 about a year ago. (still waiting for another bluetooth model) It's been the previous hurdle in the way of me using cdma - Expensive, proprietary and hard to find cables aren't a solution.

i'm glad we're (sortof) past that.. I would like to see more handset with those kind of universal interfaces.

but i digress now...

cat-mince

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#12433 3-Feb-2005 10:00

I fail to see why the can't put InfaRed in more phones. A Intored thingie for a PC is only about $40 and beats paying sometimes 100+ for a Cable.

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Jama

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#12434 3-Feb-2005 10:11

taniwha - you are hard to please. I really think you would not be satisfied no matter what Telecom release.

taniwha

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#12435 3-Feb-2005 10:17

i think it stems from fears that their customers will put ringtone and games etc into phone from infared, and not from the telco's download site....
there are many "stunted" phone models out there, that have infared crippled to only do contacts, calendars and todo...

I personally find it very handy to send sms from for qwerty keyboard on my palm or my desktop PC (with spell check too!), and to archive sms onto my PC. On my desktop PC I can see previous sms, as well as emails, and and MMS i've recieved from the same contact all there on the screen...

With my cellphone connected to my desktop PC via bluetooth (automatic when ever i'm in range), when a phone call comes into my cellphone it pops up on my desktop PC screen, including notes and a picture of the person calling - maybe some Todo i'm supposed to do for that client etc... I can even answer the call using the mic and speakers on my PC.

lots of other handy stuff.. my cdma handset (nok 3105) feels so isolated because i can't talk to it from any other device, except by cable.. I have a cable, but there isn't the same compatibility, like OBEX , that lets me do what i can do with a well implemented infared or bluetooth interface.

taniwha

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#12436 3-Feb-2005 10:18

i don't think i'm that hard to please :-(

there are dozens of GSMs i like - if only i could get the same phone in a cdma flavour.

chiefie

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#12437 3-Feb-2005 10:23

i don't blame taniwha... telecom could never satisfy me, that's why i'm moving on to telstraclear for phone line, internet services and vodafone for cellphone needs... but telecom still charge me for not subscribing any of their services... took 10 months to fully resolve their "billing error" for billing me on Jetstream when i have been long gone to TelstraClear on cable. sheesh!

with that business grope, i'd rather staying 100feet away from telecom... just like marraige, till death do us part!!! i hope telecom die first. hehehe

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chiefie

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#12438 3-Feb-2005 10:27

oh on the topic... yeah i do think both CDMA/EDVO and GPRS/EDGE data charges are too expensive... though $10/3MB on vodafone is "okay" but that mean i'd be very minimalist on usage.... which not what i like.

my next phone upgrade will be iMate PDA2k (using iMate SP2 currently)... and hopefully there will be more WiFi portal/hotspot, the Starbuck-Telecom venture is too proprietary to Xtra users... maybe Vodafone need to partner with someone perhaps Gloria Coffee or someone, to establish their WiFi HotSpot... seeing that Vodafone has an edge on their cellphone which support WiFi, and they also sell PDA with WiFi capability to coorporate users... that's a great business market to head into, if not, i'd do it! hehehe

Anyone know how to budge in and establish a 3rd mobile communication provider? how much does it involve? *hehe*

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