What, in the name of Inanna, is wrong with this country's mobile data?

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › What, in the name of Inanna, is wrong with this country's mobile data?

ThatPrettyFreya

199 posts

Master Geek

#316243 29-Sep-2024 11:40

This is partly a Vodafone thing, partly an NZ thing, but holy goddess, what, the actual hell, is going on with data?

We remember in 2016, prepay data plans were, what, $19 for 1.5GB of data, 300 minutes and 300 texts, something like that? Texts might have been unlimited.

Doesn't matter. Now, we have..... $19 for 1.15GB of data, unlimited minutes and unlimited texts.

Oh benevolent corporate darlings, you made calling unlimited. What's that, you know that calling is one of the least used purposes of a phone? And that data is the most? Then why in the name of Inanna's left tit did you make calling unlimited and charge out the ass for data!

Seriously One NZ are a massive massive part of this, but it seems to just be that data prices in this country have either not moved in years, or gotten worse. Trust us, we would know; we're from Seattle, and where we come from, unlimited mobile data (yes, darlings, there truly is something called unlimited) is US$25 a month. that's NZ$39.43. Taking into account Washington sales tax call it NZ$43-44. For that same price we are currently getting so-called "endless" data, wow, we get a whole 4GiB before we're dropped to sub-T1 speeds?

Wow, how truly generous and loving you are. not. This country is no longer connected to the world by, as it was in 2006, a coiled run of #8 fencing wire, sheep, pointy rural accents, and hope. We in fact have FTTP in this country.

Y'know that thing that provides everyone an unlimited home internet connec- oh wait, never mind, it's not everyone, now is it? There are still quite a number of folks who don't have fiber, or, y'know, go out? People do, in fact, leave their houses in this country, it seems to be quite the thing.

But we all have stupid dinky little data plans that give us the same amount of data as a T-Mobile $15 data plan, at half the speeds, with no IPV6, and worse coverage. Gods this country's mobile infra is... no, wait, the infra is great. The companies just really, really, really want to charge us for data like it's 2006 and we're still starting and ending data sessions on our Nokia E61I running Symbian.

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1983 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3287522 29-Sep-2024 12:02

We have how many people in this country?

Andy Ghozali Geekzone Member	E: andy@ghozali.ru M: +64 21 395 458 A: Andy's Business Services, 231 High St, Christchurch 8011, NZ
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Spyware

3761 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#3287524 29-Sep-2024 12:12

MightyMobile (OneNZ) do unlimited data up to 50 Mbps for $50/month.

Spark Max Fibre using Mikrotik CCR1009-8G-1S-1S+, CRS125-24G-1S, Unifi UAP, U6-Pro, UAP-AC-M-Pro, Apple TV 4K (2022), Apple TV 4K (2017), iPad Air 1st gen, iPad Air 4th gen, iPhone 13, SkyNZ3151 (the white box). If it doesn't move then it's data cabled.

ThatPrettyFreya

199 posts

Master Geek

#3287527 29-Sep-2024 12:21

@zocster

Enough. According to research, Fiji has cheaper mobile data than we do. Once you have x million people in your country, your excuse for overcharging and underdelivering, if it ever existed at all, disappears pretty quickly.

@Spyware

Wow, now we've caught up to US mobile providers from 6 years ago! and speeds from 10! Incredible!

</sarc>

ThatPrettyFreya

199 posts

Master Geek

#3287528 29-Sep-2024 12:24

seriously we know folks who were getting 50+Mbps on LTE in 2015. booooring. Your 50Mbps would like to have a word with our 1461Mbps speedtest, screenshot incoming.

Qazzy03

478 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3287529 29-Sep-2024 12:24

I shifted over from $19 spark 1.5gb data to Mightymoblie when they had their unlimited 10Mbps data and standard calls and texts for $20 a month for 12 months.

They have their fastest plan at $40 per month for 12 months atm

https://www.mightymobile.co.nz/

Kogan is the other recommend one to look out for when they have their sales.

https://koganmobile.co.nz/

The have a 45% sale on their 32GB per month plan for 2 years.

ThatPrettyFreya

199 posts

Master Geek

#3287530 29-Sep-2024 12:29

this. This is $29 a month. And properly unlimited, as in pull hundreds of gigs over it. Catch up, NZ: https://www.speedtest.net/result/i/5879705833

Spyware

3761 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#3287532 29-Sep-2024 12:38

Things will change once 5G is established and the towers all connected via fibre, just wait.

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ThatPrettyFreya

199 posts

Master Geek

#3287533 29-Sep-2024 12:40

@Spyware

We suspect at that point they'll be like "well we make so little money on mobile customers anyway, we just have to raise our prices", said Executive McCapitalist, someone who has never had to worry about money in their life, or run out of mobile data when homeless and bouncing between motels.

Can yall tell we're a little salty about this?

ThatPrettyFreya

199 posts

Master Geek

#3287534 29-Sep-2024 12:45

actually presumably they'll pull some like "We're raising our prices so we can continue to invest in the world's best 5g infrastructure to get more coverage to more kiwis", yeah, right, sure, honey. We'll believe that when we see it.

pdh

341 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3287535 29-Sep-2024 12:51

>We have how many people in this country?

Several million - last I heard....

NZ's population density is twice that of the top left quarter of the USA - the 8 states from Nebraska to Washington.
Population density being people per square km - we're 26% of their population and 14% of their area.

This excuse that everything costs so much because our population is tiny - is getting a bit tired.

ThatPrettyFreya

199 posts

Master Geek

#3287536 29-Sep-2024 12:56

@pdh

This, this, so much this. Goddamn, Kenai has cheaper mobile data than NZ does. KENAI! Ass-end, Alaska, GCI can give you unlimited for $60, and that's expensive by US standards, and even that gives you more full-speed data, cause yeah they do that too, than NZ does. This country is no longer a tiny isolated pacific island, and agreed, trying to pretend it is is just a bunch of people who really, really, really, really wish it was 1972 and any company in this country could charge whatever the hell they want because what're you gonna do, switch? The best part about our mobile plans in this country will be when we get to terminate all the bloody things and never look back.

ThatPrettyFreya

199 posts

Master Geek

#3287537 29-Sep-2024 12:58

we can understand like, folks who've literally never left this country not knowing any better.... yall, go look at Australia. Go look at that massive, incredibly sparsely populated place and tell us again how we just have too low a population density to make fast, cheap, unlimited mobile data viable? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's what we thought.

loceff13

1065 posts

Uber Geek

#3287548 29-Sep-2024 13:33

Ofcourse but its so profitable to sell data at current rates theres zero incentive to compete with eachother. Aus is a more competitive market that was well behind on fibre rollout/uptake so mobile leaped in its place.

ThatPrettyFreya

199 posts

Master Geek

#3287549 29-Sep-2024 13:37

@loceff13

If we had any power, we would drop AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile into the NZ market and watch all 3 of them absolutely beat the piss out of all of our pissant little local telcos. Spark, One, and 2degrees all operate like, again, it's 2006, and NZ is oh just this tiny little island, cut us some slack, we're only checks notes 5 million people........... yeah. Yeah. Not quite 1.2 million anymore, hey? Not bloody quite

turtleattacks

914 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#3287550 29-Sep-2024 13:37

Fiji is smaller.

Try to calculate the cost of network build divided by the number of users to start with. This isn't even counting running/op costs.

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