Should Telecom credit $2000 for 70MB roaming charges?

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Should Telecom credit $2000 for 70MB roaming charges?

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BDFL - Memuneh
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#590661 5-Mar-2012 13:57

mattwnz: People on here will of course now all that, but that is why this is geekzone. Many people who are not technically aware wouldn't have seen or noticed them. I could ask my mother, and she wouldn't have a clue about what the roaming charges were. There isn't really that much education about it.

You'd be surprised to find out how many non-geeks are on Geekzone - ones that don't know Telecom CDMA is closing soon, ones who don't know mobile data roaming require tromboning, and so on.

What is important though is that Paul should get all points of views - from people here on Geekzone (those pro and against) and collate those with other views from users outside this forum and present this as a unified front.

Now, Paul... I understand you are against the excessive prices (which I am too), but you might want to survey this and see a) how much people know about this within the TUANZ affiliates and b) how many wants things changed pronto. Would be good to post this here - perhaps in a new thread.

NonprayingMantis

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#590666 5-Mar-2012 14:05

BlueShift:
NonprayingMantis:
Thats because none of those products work in even remotely the same way as roaming.

With roaming you are using someone else’s product (network) but are not actually a customer of that company. Instead you get being billed for it by your home country’s network because you do not wish to inconvenience yourself by buying a sim for that country.

The closest analogy for a product like coffee would be going to a coffee shop in Spain and requiring that the Spanish café don't charge you directly, but isntead charge you via the tab you have setup at your coffee shop in your home country because you don’t wish to inconvenience yourself by becoming a customer of that coffee shop for the short time you are on holiday. If you suggested that to a café owner in spain they would laugh you out of the shop.

My gym is a local franchise of an international chain. as part of my membership I can use my access card to get into any of the chain, anywhere in the world, 24/7. No extra charge.

Vodafone is a local division of a multinational corporate. You'd think at the very least they'd be able to arrange cheap or free roaming on their own networks around the world.

I agree, they probably could.
It could we be deemed anticompetitive by regulators though since no other carrier could match that sort of pricing.

NonprayingMantis: The closest actual analogue to roaming I can think of to roaming is banking. When you go overseas you are using a different company’s network of ATMs, but you do not require an account with them. instead you use the account from your home country’s bank.

so, loking at banking charges I can see that it is free for me to withdraw money from my banks ATM in NZ, but if I go overseas and try to withdraw money from an ATM there it costs me $2. That is a multiplier of infinity. (not to mention the exchange rates are usually not that great either). Even if I am on one of those accounts which doesn’t include free withdrawals from NZ ATMs, it is still only 5c. compared to $2 that is a huge multiplier, similar to the roaming multiplier.

Using another bank's ATM in NZ, when charged, generally costs around 50c per transaction, so the overseas multiplier is 4x. Not 40,000.

But that in itself is a form of roaming.

freitasm

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#590675 5-Mar-2012 14:10

Could people putting their views here make it clear if they have any bias, through a disclaimer?

Or at least stop pretending this excessive charges are justifiable by using decent arguments - presenting costs, agreements, etc. Otherwise there's not much progress going to happen here.

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#590677 5-Mar-2012 14:11

freitasm: Could people putting their views here make it clear if they have any bias, through a disclaimer?

Or at least stop pretending this excessive charges are justifiable by using decent arguments - presenting costs, agreements, etc. Otherwise there's not much progress going to happen here.

I think its pretty clear with any business: they will charge as much as they can get away with. If everybody suddenly stopped doing data roaming then quite quickly they would be forced to change their pricing schemes.

NonprayingMantis

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#590683 5-Mar-2012 14:15

codyc1515:
freitasm: Could people putting their views here make it clear if they have any bias, through a disclaimer?

Or at least stop pretending this excessive charges are justifiable by using decent arguments - presenting costs, agreements, etc. Otherwise there's not much progress going to happen here.

I think its pretty clear with any business: they will charge as much as they can get away with. If everybody suddenly stopped doing data roaming then quite quickly they would be forced to change their pricing schemes.

Exactly. Nobody that I have seen has claimed these charges are reasonable (with the possible exception of places like cook islands IMO who might not be able to exist as a viable business without high roaming revenues).

I have just been trying to point out the silliness of comparing prices for things like magazines or coffee when it isn’t even close to the same thing, and how these charges can easily be avoided by using a local sim.

People need to vote with their wallet, just like Paul brislen often says. If we don’t like the roaming charges. Use a local sim. It’s not rocket surgery. I do it all the time when I go overseas.Bought a Voda sim last time I went back to the UK. 4 weeks later and I still hadn’t spent the 20 quid I topped up.

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#590733 5-Mar-2012 15:06

One of the problems is that there are enough business/corporate/government users who don't much care if they run up a roaming bill of several hundred dollars per overseas trip. These users presumably generate enough revenue for the service providers that they can afford to perpetuate the ridiculous pricing and lose customers like us who would rather switch to a local SIM when travelling. I routinely carry a second dumb phone with my NZ SIM so I can be contactable, and use a local SIM for data in my smartphone.
Interestingly, I may be wrong but I don't think Cook Islands Telecom does mobile data on prepaid SIMs - so not sure what options the traveller has there.

I like the mifi suggestion - will have to investigate these

freitasm

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#590734 5-Mar-2012 15:09

shk292: Interestingly, I may be wrong but I don't think Cook Islands Telecom does mobile data on prepaid SIMs - so not sure what options the traveller has there.

If you are on vacation, and don't want to incur the terrible fees: step away from your mobile. Do not use Facebook or Twitter.

That simple.

Not saying the prices are right, but knowing the prices are like this and no alternative connection is available, then it's better not to use it.

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#590737 5-Mar-2012 15:11

codyc1515:
freitasm: Could people putting their views here make it clear if they have any bias, through a disclaimer?

Or at least stop pretending this excessive charges are justifiable by using decent arguments - presenting costs, agreements, etc. Otherwise there's not much progress going to happen here.

I think its pretty clear with any business: they will charge as much as they can get away with. If everybody suddenly stopped doing data roaming then quite quickly they would be forced to change their pricing schemes.

I think companies that do charge as much as they can get away with, are not the sort of companies I would want to deal with. I think that if they are in a dominant position, hwere they could charge as much as they wanted, they should charge a 'reasonable fee' . If they don't, they can get regulated anyway.Competition brings down pricing too. When roaming, there isn't really any competition, unless you switch the sim to a local provider, which is what I would do anyway.

Also one thing to remember, is that you can challenge any invoice with the company, and take it to the disputes tribunal if you believe it is excessive or the pricing wasn't clearly stated etc.

shk292

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#590740 5-Mar-2012 15:12

freitasm:
shk292: Interestingly, I may be wrong but I don't think Cook Islands Telecom does mobile data on prepaid SIMs - so not sure what options the traveller has there.

If you are on vacation, and don't want to incur the terrible fees: step away from your mobile. Do not use Facebook or Twitter.

That simple.

Not saying the prices are right, but knowing the prices are like this and no alternative connection is available, then it's better not to use it.

Agreed - but it's hard being disconnected!

Actually, I have family in Raro and took the precaution of giving them a wireless router last time I visited. Now I know the location of at least one free wireless hotspot

stevenz

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#590745 5-Mar-2012 15:17

I'm in the "he should've known" boat, it's 2012 - this is not news, nor is the fact that roaming prices are obscene. If it happened to me, I'd be furious, but I'd pay up knowing that it's my own stupid fault, then proceed to live off baked beans for the remainder of the month.

Do hotels in the islands have WiFi as an alternative?

@KnightNZ

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#590746 5-Mar-2012 15:18

stevenz: I'm in the "he should've known" boat, it's 2012 - this is not news, nor is the fact that roaming prices are obscene. If it happened to me, I'd be furious, but I'd pay up knowing that it's my own stupid fault, then proceed to live off baked beans for the remainder of the month.

Do hotels in the islands have WiFi as an alternative?

Look, I'm not saying the price is ok - it's "too damn high" (TM). But he knows how much he uses at home. He knows the price per MB while roaming. Simple math would show that he should not use it.

Telcos are in the wrong? Yes. He's in the wrong? Yes,

That's all.

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#590758 5-Mar-2012 15:34

fly to london

dine in gordon ramsay's restaurant - have only entree and drink only juice cocktail and only have chocolates for dessert

when the bill arrives say my goodness this is too much i'm only paying the price that cadbury charges for chocolates and nothing else

stevenz

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#590760 5-Mar-2012 15:36

A version of "ignorance of the law is no excuse" perhaps applies?

TOWATL.

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mattwnz

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#590765 5-Mar-2012 15:45

joker97: fly to london

dine in gordon ramsay's restaurant - have only entree and drink only juice cocktail and only have chocolates for dessert

when the bill arrives say my goodness this is too much i'm only paying the price that cadbury charges for chocolates and nothing else

But the difference is that you are ordering from a menu, which has the prices clearly displayed, and you know clearly the quantity you ordered. When you are downloading, you don't know the 'quanity' you have downloaded very easily, nor is the price unless you are previously investigated the roaming pricing on their website.

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#590769 5-Mar-2012 15:55

If someone covered this already - sorry, but what kind of charges does someone (for example) who is with a US telco incur for mobile data if they went (for example) to the UK (or elsewhere).

Is this the NZ consumer getting slammed unreasonably or do all the telcos charge massively for mobile data while roaming?

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