My daughter has had two, late model mobile phones over the past couple of years, namely an
Ideos U8150 and a Motorola Defy +.

The Ideos previously worked perfectly fine (voice, TXT and data) over the 2 Degrees and TNZ XT networks, but had (still does) reception problems when she switched to Skinny when it became available.

My understanding is that Skinny essentially is a 'pricing model' that runs over the XT network, so why the poor signal coverage?

We ran the phone's IMEI numbers through the compatability databases - XT said it was 'probably compatable', whilst the Skinny site at first (couple weeks ago) said ok, but now lists it as incompatible .... Skinny offer this as a reason for the poor reception in many areas.

My questions are -

1: Is Skinny and TNZ's XT really exactly the same network?

2: If it is, are Skinny SIM cards/numbers being 'throttled" or "shunted" within or to a special space (viz. lower performance) on the network to reflect the lower cost?

3: Would telcos really manipulate their services or SIMS for phones that they themselves don't sell?

Thanks.