Mobil Prepay for low usage - Pay & Go looks like a good deal!

Forums › One NZ (including Farmside) › Mobil Prepay for low usage - Pay & Go looks like a good deal!

MarkH67

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#198620 16-Jul-2016 16:42

A few years back I was on a plan and moved to 2degrees (from Vodafone) for a better price and roll-over minutes. Since then several things have changed including my employment.

Now I am using prepay and only go through $20 - $30 per year, I receive calls and texts while sending the occasional text and hardly ever make outgoing calls. It looks like 2degrees have just increased the cost of texts to 20c from the 9c I have been paying.

I checked Vodafone to see what they are offering and found this on their Pay & Go plan:

Vodafone: Calls - 20c/min, texts 1c ea, data 20c/MB

2degrees: Calls - 44c/min, texts - 20c ea, data 50c/MB

Spark: Calls - 49c/min, texts - 20c ea, data $1 for 10MB followed by 30c/MB

Skinny: Calls - 20c/min, texts - 20c ea, data 20c/MB

That's quite a contrast on all three prices, Spark & 2degrees are way behind Vodafone & Skinny.

It looks to me like things have changed a lot recently with the prices and for some reason 2degrees is nowhere near competitive any more. So I guess I'll have to change providers, luckily my credit is down to only $1.57 on 2degrees. I will have to get me a sim card and move back to Vodafone. I should be able to run 12 months on $20 with those prices.

Of course this doesn't necessarily apply to plans or bundles, just the cheap pay as you go type prepay usage.

michaelmurfy

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#1593584 16-Jul-2016 16:50

I'm guessing you don't play Pokemon...

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NonprayingMantis

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#1593585 16-Jul-2016 16:52

Dunno. If you only spend $20-30 per year it hardly seems worth even bothering to shop around.

The amount you will save from switching is probably outweighed by the time you've taken checking all the prices and the hassle factor of actually making the switch.

richms

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#1593593 16-Jul-2016 17:22

Dont expect it to last, no profit on customers spending that little and I am sure they would rather not have all those idle handsets cluttering up the network.

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RunningMan

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#1593600 16-Jul-2016 17:36

Seen this thread on the same topic?

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=85&topicid=196109

mattwnz

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#1593603 16-Jul-2016 17:39

richms:

Dont expect it to last, no profit on customers spending that little and I am sure they would rather not have all those idle handsets cluttering up the network.

Would it be affecting the network at all, if they are only pinging it. Some money is better than no money. Also you get free devices like 3g kindles that are accessing it at no cost at all.

I moved my parents off 2 degrees onto the vodafone plan, as they are low users. 1 cent txting is pretty good, as is the calling rate. I have an old prepay plan where I can topup data (eg 300MB that lasts a week) for a few dollars as a data boost. Whereas the new vodafone prepay plan doesn' t have that ability , but I guess they want people to upgrade to their higher plans to get data.

mattwnz

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#1593616 16-Jul-2016 17:45

NonprayingMantis: Dunno. If you only spend $20-30 per year it hardly seems worth even bothering to shop around.

The amount you will save from switching is probably outweighed by the time you've taken checking all the prices and the hassle factor of actually making the switch.

Depends, as if it is cheaper , they may use it a lot more, and therefore end up spending more.

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MarkH67

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#1593632 16-Jul-2016 18:13

RunningMan:

Seen this thread on the same topic?

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=85&topicid=196109

Did a search and couldn't find anything on the topic, thanks for the link.

MarkH67

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#1593633 16-Jul-2016 18:17

NonprayingMantis: Dunno. If you only spend $20-30 per year it hardly seems worth even bothering to shop around.

The amount you will save from switching is probably outweighed by the time you've taken checking all the prices and the hassle factor of actually making the switch.

Well, that's the attitude that lets a business put up their prices by over 100% and still keep customers.

For me, the main cost has been texts at 9c each, 2degrees have recently upped that to 20c each so my $20-$30 per year could go up a bit. At 1c per text I may send more of them because at that price why not.

Vodafone is offering the best deal for me so I'm thinking that they are the ones that deserve the dollars I do spend, not 2degrees. In a way I'm voting for my choice of providers with money.

MarkH67

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#1593905 17-Jul-2016 14:03

To be fair to 2degrees I would say that if I were using the phone more for calls and texts and was spending $19 per month on a pack then I'd stay with 2degrees since they offer a better deal than Vodafone.

For $19 on 2degrees you can have: 100minutes to NZ & Aus that carry over, unlimited texts and 1GB data.

On Vodafone for $19 you get: 100m/unlimited txts & 500MB data.

Not a huge difference but more data is always better.

On the cheaper prepay plan you get more for $8 from 2degrees than for $9 from Vodafone.

But for me with more modest usage, mainly sending & receiving texts and receiving phone calls while leaving data until I get home to my WiFi - I'd like to get as much as I can for $20 and would prefer to only need to renew once per year, if I can. I know some others that use their phones a similar way, getting by on one top up per year, I'll be mentioning to them the new pricing from 2d & Vodafone and why I'm switching to Vodafone.

To be honest I could easily afford to spend $19 per month, if I had a reason to. But I prefer to not spend when I don't have to so I can use the money for other things that matter more to me. I'm certainly not allergic to spending good money on something I want, recently I replaced my 3 year old Galaxy S4 with a new Galaxy S7 Edge - I use the phone a bit, just not for making calls as much as for reading books, GPS navigation, taking photos, etc. I also have 2 motorcycles to support which cost me over a thousand a year for registration alone.