EVDO / 1x Roaming to Oz now available

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › EVDO / 1x Roaming to Oz now available

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82 posts

Master Geek

#17533 4-Aug-2005 12:55

I can't believe when anyone tells me that Vodafone sets their data roaming price based on how much the other operators charge for connection - so, Vodafone Australia, Vodafone in Europe, AT&T and Cingular (now just one, the page hasn't been updated for a while), they all charge the same price?

Aha! No, they charge Vodafone NZ a rate of anywhere between NZ$15.00 and NZ$50.00 (or more) per MB. But what Vodafone NZ does is average that price out to NZ$30.00 to make it simple for customers. A nice touch and I don't know of any other operators who do this.

The entire global mobile operator community are colluding on maintaing these insane prices. If the UN had a Competition Commission they would step in and do something! It is up to consumers to show it is unacceptable by using WiFi etc.

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#17534 4-Aug-2005 13:02

timbo: The entire global mobile operator community are colluding on maintaing these insane prices. If the UN had a Competition Commission they would step in and do something! It is up to consumers to show it is unacceptable by using WiFi etc.

They do, but it's used by Governments only. It's the WTO...

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#17542 4-Aug-2005 15:32

The whole roaming issue is becoming a hot topic in Europe at the moment as well with the EU commission trying to do something about it as well.

There is a story here

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=2005-07-11T151524Z_01_MOL154871_RTRIDST_0_OUKIN-TELECOMS-EU.XML

And if you do a google news search you will find a lot of related stories as well from the last month or so.

Stewart

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#17548 5-Aug-2005 08:36

I see on NZ Herald this morning that vodafone have restructured the pricing for international data roaming. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=5&ObjectID=10339239. Will be interesting to see Telecom's official pricing...

timbo

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Master Geek

#17549 5-Aug-2005 08:43

Looks like $10.00 per MB to all destinations - an improvement but is it low enough to stimulate real usage?

I'd still expect to see a better rate to Vodafone Aus with 3G due to the amount of data that could be racked up. And the Vodafone Passport pricing might reduce things even further to other Vodafone destinations.

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#17550 5-Aug-2005 08:46

timbo - I think it is actually time for Telecom to drop its pants now :-)

(yes yes, i have nice warm piece of humble pie to eat, thanks anyway)

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#17551 5-Aug-2005 08:47

I couldn't help but laugh at the story!

Firstly Vodafone saying it's just a coincidence they have slashed all international data roaming to $10Mb on the very same afternoon that Telecom announce $19.95MB to oz.

And then Kevin Kenrick "The service was originally going to be offered for $19.95 a megabyte, but the company was now rethinking that. We will make sure that no customer will be disadvantaged on price by being with us," Kenrick said, adding that a final price would be announced soon.

So Telecom admit $19.95 has nothing to do with the wholesale cost of providing the service and Telecom will be able to drop it now that a competitor has announced a cheaper price! :-)

It's good to see competition does work at times!

timbo

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Master Geek

#17552 5-Aug-2005 08:55

Oh no need for that - all in the name of good robust discussion.

Interesting thing is whether either or both operators are actually losing money on this service and how much they are prepared to lose to maintain the 'Trans-Tasman' seamlessness.

I would presume that Vodafone NZ are getting a better wholesale rate out of Vodafone Aus (for GPRS/3GSM-UMTS) than Telecom can get out of Telstra (for 1X/EVDO). But Vodafone has a much larger percentage of the roaming market anyway so may not want to lose as much per customer.

Not sure if this is true competition or a 'loss leader' to help stimulate greater usage at home or just retain customers.

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#17553 5-Aug-2005 10:00

From what I was told yesterday it's all Vodafone roaming, not just oz. I stand to be corrected if I can actually find more details on new deal however, Vodafone haven't announced anything on their website or changed any pricing details yet.

I think it would be great if Vodafone NZ & Oz just made roaming completely transparent - they partially implimented this with call plans but an Australian customer roaming in NZ gets charged big $$. Extending this so everything - sms, data and voice was completely transparent would seem very logical with the number of customers that travel between both countries. There are already transferring lots of data between countries.

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#17554 5-Aug-2005 10:04

Found a link here from Google News. It is not all countries that have dropped to $10 only the following - Australia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the UK

http://www.noticias.info/asp/aspComunicados.asp?nid=89263&src=0

Surely Vodafone should be releasing their press releases on their own website! :-)

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#17555 5-Aug-2005 10:19

Just because I was late on posting news today... The Press Release is on the Vodafone global site. Actually Vodafone New Zealand is quite bad in posting their own press releases.

NZ$10 is better than NZ$30, I agree, but it applies only when roaming on Vodafone operators - so it means it will still be NZ$30/MB while in the US, for GPRS.

Hope Telecom NZ comes with EV-DO roaming in the US sooner than later!

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#17556 5-Aug-2005 11:00

Now that its all getting a decent airing perhaps some closer attention will be paid to getting it all sorted out to a decent level, or people will just use wifi and internet cafes if they have any concerns about bills.

A business associate of mine just roamed to Aus & USA (voice only) and used his phone exactly as he would of if he was in NZ (bearing in mind time differences), his bill swelled from $120 to $670 due to the higher cost of roaming and recieving calls.

He is happy to pay it becuase he knew the charges in advance, and needed to make and recieve all those calls, but it still sounds a little excessive to me.

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#17557 5-Aug-2005 11:07

but it still sounds a little excessive to me.

thats hugely excessive, surely it doesnt cost double let alone 4-5 times as much
I suppose knowing it advance helps in a way but for the average user who say takes their phone on holiday they may learn the hard way

So with VF you cannot roam on Verizon (VF owns 44%) for $10 per mb?

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#17558 5-Aug-2005 11:10

SNicolle: So with VF you cannot roam on Verizon (VF owns 44%) for $10 per mb?

No, you can't because Verizone Wireless is a CDMA network. In the USA Vodafone does have roaming agreement with Cingular (and AT&T now Cingular anyway). But the Vodafone Passport is only valid on Vodafone's own network operators.

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#17560 5-Aug-2005 12:58

i actually knew that but forgot to consider it at the time.

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