On Stuff this morning - I pointed a friend of a journalist at the 'GPRS billing' thread:

Vodafone apologises for glitches
21 February 2005

Vodafone New Zealand has apologised to customers for billing glitches in December that it says have now been resolved.


Several customers have complained in online discussion groups of being billed weeks late for sending and receiving data over the telco's GPRS mobile phone network.

Some customers thought they had got away without being charged for using the network, only to see their pre-pay credit balances drop suddenly mid-last month.

Vodafone spokeswoman Sarah Williams says Vodafone upgraded its billing system just before Christmas and this was responsible for the "unusual" delays.

"This has now been resolved and customers' data charges should now be back to normal time frames. Vodafone apologises to customers for any inconvenience."

Ms Williams says charges for data traffic sent over its network are processed in "batches", but should normally be billed to customers "within hours" - unless customers are roaming on a competitor's network, in which case it may have less control.

Vodafone is considering changes to its GPRS network which would reduce the lag and make billing "as close to real time as possible", she says.