One/VFNZ AU preferred roaming network

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › One/VFNZ AU preferred roaming network - Telstra?

cokemaster

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#303972 24-Mar-2023 18:26

In the past my handsets have always preferred Vodafone AU but have had the ability to attach to other networks where required.
However more recently, I'm seeing it prefer Telstra even when in areas with excellent Vodafone AU coverage.

I'm not complaining but found it amusing nevertheless.

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cokemaster

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#3054298 24-Mar-2023 21:05

Looks like something has been changed ;)

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farcus

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#3054304 24-Mar-2023 22:02

it's because they now share the same number of vowels ;-)

andyb

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#3055145 27-Mar-2023 08:54

cokemaster:

In the past my handsets have always preferred Vodafone AU but have had the ability to attach to other networks where required.
However more recently, I'm seeing it prefer Telstra even when in areas with excellent Vodafone AU coverage.

I'm not complaining but found it amusing nevertheless.

Carriers move traffic around all the time, depending on roaming agreements in place, launched services and roaming experience.

I put Spark roaming traffic on Vodafone properties in a number of countries simply because they have the best network and coverage in that country.

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#3056830 30-Mar-2023 21:50

cokemaster:

In the past my handsets have always preferred Vodafone AU but have had the ability to attach to other networks where required.
However more recently, I'm seeing it prefer Telstra even when in areas with excellent Vodafone AU coverage.

I'm not complaining but found it amusing nevertheless.

Are you On Account? For On Account customers Vodafone has traditionally offered roaming onto most (sometimes even all) networks in other countries including their competitors.

For Prepay I believe Vodafone are more selective. Last time I was in Australia my Vodafone NZ prepaid SIM would only roam on Vodafone (although 5G roaming worked a treat!). Forcing it on to Optus or Telstra would not work. This was quite disappointing as the coverage difference to Optus/Vodafone is quite significant.

For whats its worth 2degrees roam on all 3 networks in Australia (true for postpaid, but I believe it is the same for prepay as well) and Spark roams on at least two (possibly all three but I didn't really test that much). As noted Spark roams on Vodafone where it makes sense to do so. I think Spark does steered roaming to push people onto whoever they have the better arrangements with. This is nice as they can push people onto a preferred carrier where they have coverage but once you leave their coverage then it's just a case of falling back to another carrier.

Info from middle of last year so may have changed.

Roaming is a funny business. Years ago (before all this daily roaming, data packages, etc prices came into effect) Vodafone NZ used to charge different prices depending on the network you connected to in each country. I recall several examples where it was cheaper to roam on their competitors than it was to roam on Vodafone. I'm sure there was a good business reason for that!

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#3056862 31-Mar-2023 00:02

Was on prepaid this time.

I do remember the old days (you can still find them on the wayback machine). Interestingly whilst the pricing has now normalised, some of the Australian telcos still have per roaming operator tables although limited to functionality, not price.

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