Vodafone New Zealand roaming prices changes

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freitasm

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#16567 17-Oct-2007 09:07

If you call 495 from your Vodafone New Zealand mobile phone you will hear the new Vodafone roaming fees, available from 1st November 2007.

It looks like it now costs $1 per minute to receive calls overseas, no matter where you are. SMS are now charged at $.80 flat fee when roaming.

They also implemented a new "Traveller" roaming fee table, similar to what Telecom New Zealand is already doing for months, that is you are charged a fixed fee for outcalls while roaming, depending on where in the world you are, with only four different zones.

With Vodafone Traveller you will be able to pay the same New Zealand rate when calling from Australia, with increased tolls in different zones.

If you don't join Vodafone Traveller then calling New Zealand while roaming on Vodafone Australia will cost $1.45 (peak) and $1.00 (off peak) per minute and $.55 (peak) and $0.40 (off peak) per minute within Australia.

The bad things?

- You must opt-in to Vodafone Traveller.
- Vodafone New Zealand is offering "Traveller" only to customers in new plans such as Motormouth, You Chose, Talkzone Corporate.

I feel bad with this. It seems Vodafone New Zealand thinks the cash I pay monthly on my old plan is different from the cash people pay with their new plans.

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#91318 17-Oct-2007 09:09

And not to mention, that as a pre-paid customer I am unworthy also?

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#91323 17-Oct-2007 09:22

There are also steep price increases for roaming in Australia which is a bit of a pain, particularly since it's the biggest market. Overall the tiered rates is a good concept and at least removes a lot of the uncertainly when it comes to knowing the cost of a call.

It's just just a shame Vodafone still can't realise any of the potential when it comes to being one of the world's biggest mobile carriers. Why aren't calls on any VF network all charged at the home rate using included minutes? 3's roaming is brilliant - roam on any 3 network and you can use included minutes and TXT's with no surcharge, pay no incoming roaming surcharges and dirt cheap data, 3 Aussie customers pay 50c MB for data while roaming.

Vodafone shoould be a leader in the market and making the world a better place but instead they're still stuck in the dark ages trying to rort their customers rather than making things simple. Whatever happened to One Vodafone and the idea of consistancy of branding across all networks?

Why does Vodafone launch Traveller and not Passport? Why can't we get flat rate incoming calls like Passport offers, afterall a UK customer can use Passport in NZ for flat rate calling yet we can't while roaming in the UK which hardly seems fair..

chiefie

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#91331 17-Oct-2007 10:01

Hmmm... why roam when you can get prepaid card from different country upon your arrival.

I think, the best roaming traveller approach is have an webpage to track your travel, and associated contact number for people that you want to stay in contact with. mmmm I see a web service for this ;-)

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freitasm

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#91336 17-Oct-2007 10:31

If there is an emergency people won't be looking for a website where to find your new number. Police won't know about that. Doctors won't know about.

sbiddle

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#91337 17-Oct-2007 10:32

chiefie: Hmmm... why roam when you can get prepaid card from different country upon your arrival.

I think, the best roaming traveller approach is have an webpage to track your travel, and associated contact number for people that you want to stay in contact with. mmmm I see a web service for this ;-)

It's still a pain to do this, roaming is so much simpler

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#91342 17-Oct-2007 10:56

Yes I think Chiefie is on the right track here. I spend a lot of time in the US for business, and have been able to cut my telecommunications costs considerably.

Firstly, I have a SkypeIn number here in New Zealand. Before I leave, I forward my 021 number to the SkypeIn number.

Secondly, I have a tMobile SIM card on prepay over in the US. If I top it up by US$100 increments, I am able to send and receive calls within the US for 10 cents a minute and can go for a year without needing to top up again. There is no shortage of calling card options to make cheap calls back to New Zealand, and the Skype to Go service means that I have a US number that allows me to call the kids back home.

Finally, I have the Skype free calling option in the US, so I forward my Skype to my US cell phone.

The bottom line then is that someone in NZ calls my 021 number, and reaches me in the US via my laptop when I have WiFi, and via my tMobile cell phone when I don't. Works well and although the steps sound complex, it's easy to maintain.

The only down side is that you can't forward text messages from the 021 number to the tMobile number.

Now that I have a Nokia E61I, I can also use Truphone, which when used with WiFi, gives exceptional call quality at good rates.

Jonathan

freitasm

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#91343 17-Oct-2007 10:58

That's all nice and works for well for the geeks here, but not for the Joe Public...

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sbiddle

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#91344 17-Oct-2007 11:05

jmosen: Yes I think Chiefie is on the right track here. I spend a lot of time in the US for business, and have been able to cut my telecommunications costs considerably.

Firstly, I have a SkypeIn number here in New Zealand. Before I leave, I forward my 021 number to the SkypeIn number.

Secondly, I have a tMobile SIM card on prepay over in the US. If I top it up by US$100 increments, I am able to send and receive calls within the US for 10 cents a minute and can go for a year without needing to top up again. There is no shortage of calling card options to make cheap calls back to New Zealand, and the Skype to Go service means that I have a US number that allows me to call the kids back home.

Finally, I have the Skype free calling option in the US, so I forward my Skype to my US cell phone.

The bottom line then is that someone in NZ calls my 021 number, and reaches me in the US via my laptop when I have WiFi, and via my tMobile cell phone when I don't. Works well and although the steps sound complex, it's easy to maintain.

The only down side is that you can't forward text messages from the 021 number to the tMobile number.

Now that I have a Nokia E61I, I can also use Truphone, which when used with WiFi, gives exceptional call quality at good rates.

It would be quite easy to but a GSM->SIP voice gateway and put your NZ SIM card into this and leave it in NZ. You could then route all calls via a VoIP provider to your destination mobile phone and could also run your own SMS gateway software to forward all received SMS messages onto your foreign cellphone.

allstarnz

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#91347 17-Oct-2007 11:21

like has been said, that's a steep increase for us roaming to Aus.

Oh well, i'll just use my Telecom phone instead.

Is there press link release for that?

mobygeek

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#91349 17-Oct-2007 11:43

Well I think I will buy an Optus prepaid sim card to put into my vodafone when I get to aussie this christmas, because I am prepaid. But I will check the roaming pages before I go. Nearly thinking of acquiring an unlocked w531 for my vodafone sim card. Then I could call emergency on CDMA when out in the back of beyond in Aussie?

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#91350 17-Oct-2007 11:48

This makes things a lot simpler for joe public IMO, and it makes for cheaper outgoing calls whilst roaming. It also gets rid of the need to worry about which network you're using as it no longer matters - The worst thing about roaming at the moment (besides data) is knowing what network to use and what they're going to charge you! Look at travelling to Australia. VFAU calling is your standard home rate at the moment.. but if your phone jumps to Tesltra ($7/min!) or Optus ($6.60/min)

How many people know to manually select a network? I do but I'm guessing the majority of people outside of GZ don't. If their phone auto-selects Telstra/Optus then its game over for their next bill.

I agree the incoming call charge increase for countries like Australia seems a little odd but generally when I'm roaming I divert all calls to VMS anyway and call people myself, works out cheaper and it's only me paying not both parties, and its a lot cheaper to call for a minute than to have a TXT conversation.

CrispinMullins

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#91360 17-Oct-2007 13:31

freitasm: SMS are now charged at $.80 flat fee when roaming.

This represents a big price increase for all the countries I have occasion to roam to. Not happy.

c3rn

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#91361 17-Oct-2007 13:35

freitasm:
............

The bad things?

- You must opt-in to Vodafone Traveller.
- Vodafone New Zealand is offering "Traveller" only to customers in new plans such as Motormouth, You Chose, Talkzone Corporate.

I feel bad with this. It seems Vodafone New Zealand thinks the cash I pay monthly on my old plan is different from the cash people pay with their new plans.

Just to clarify. Opting in is easy: call to 777 or visit to store and it's done. "Traveller" is available to existing customers however as you point out it's only available on MM, YC or Talkzone.