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?

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198 posts

Master Geek

#3287552 29-Sep-2024 13:41

@turtleattacks

Fiji also has a whole load less funding. NZ threw billions into the FTTP deploy, and then forgot that people actually leave their houses sometimes. Helll, when we had to come back to NZ for stupid reasons, and goddamnit we're pissed off we had to do that, we burned through our entire Spark mobile data allowance, boom, like that, because when we were back in SEA, we had set our apple music streaming quality to, y'know, lossless. Y'know, because we could? Because we had data? It's like getting back on DSL after getting on FTTP, it's literally painful, we have to be so aware of our data usage all the time and it's getting really, really, very old

mudguard

2102 posts

Uber Geek

#3287554 29-Sep-2024 14:02

If you don't like the mobile data prices, wait until you see the price of flights. Oh, and lamb. And maybe milk.

But on the other side of that, there's no one here, trails are empty, golf courses are empty. It's great. When I lived in the UK flights to Europe were incredibly cheap. But I had to live with 50 odd million others. Scale is everything. Those three telcos you suggested would never set up here. The country is long and skinny, kind of the worst shape for power generation and telco coverage.

ThatPrettyFreya

198 posts

Master Geek

#3287555 29-Sep-2024 14:07

@mudguard

Yeah, no, we technically grew up here. We say we're from Seattle cause none of our memories of this country have ever been very good and our first good ones were from there, so retroactive history modification be the order of the day. Anyways. Yes, it is bloody empty. Painfully empty. Uselessly absurdly pointlessly empty. We live right now in Te Aro and it's still not got enough population for our brain to be happy. And no, we know the prices of all that kind of thing. They range from "ow", to "nooooooooo", to 0x6675636b N O where is the nearest fredmeyer?'

mudguard

2102 posts

Uber Geek

#3287559 29-Sep-2024 14:17

ThatPrettyFreya:

@mudguard

Yeah, no, we technically grew up here. We say we're from Seattle cause none of our memories of this country have ever been very good and our first good ones were from there, so retroactive history modification be the order of the day. Anyways. Yes, it is bloody empty. Painfully empty. Uselessly absurdly pointlessly empty. We live right now in Te Aro and it's still not got enough population for our brain to be happy. And no, we know the prices of all that kind of thing. They range from "ow", to "nooooooooo", to 0x6675636b N O where is the nearest fredmeyer?'

Our population is smaller than Washington. We're spread out. We're ageing. I'm not sure what your point is, my phone plan has something like 10GB, I haven't checked in awhile. A BMW M440 costs $72,000USD ($113,000NZD). Here it starts at almost $200,000. Should that be the same price?

I should point out I have a very old Civic and a younger Corolla, there's no way I'm in the market for that BMW!

If you want things cheap then you have to live where they can be sold cheap.

ThatPrettyFreya

198 posts

Master Geek

#3287562 29-Sep-2024 14:22

@mudguard

Honestly, we're just mad at this country for sucking. For having next to no secondhand computer market, for having piss all blind accessibility stuff (and no the blind foundation do not count), for everythinng costing a million dollars, for having no amazon, for a lot of reasons. Y'know that thing where you grow up somewhere and you figure "well this is just how it's done", and then you go to somewhere and you see it done infinitely better for less, and you come back to your origin and you're mad about it? Yeah. That's us right now. We're mad at NZ for, essentially, sitting on their ass, watching rugby and complaining about dense apartment builds in cities instead of actually getting off their ass, and realising that this country can't be kept slow and rural and sleepy and quiet forever. That aesthetic is dead and it should've died a long, long, long time ago.

Linux

11297 posts

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#3287564 29-Sep-2024 14:24

Build your own mobile network then!

ThatPrettyFreya

198 posts

Master Geek

#3287565 29-Sep-2024 14:25

now don't get us wrong we're not about to start supporting, like, deforestation and paving over nature to build more cities, but that's just it, you don't need to. Build up, not out, yall. Dense cities, amazingly enough, are easier to blanket with mobile coverage...... this got way offtopic didn't it? oops

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ThatPrettyFreya

198 posts

Master Geek

#3287566 29-Sep-2024 14:27

@Linux

Well we could buy some of those LTE CBRS accesspoints and set up a whole infra for that, but it would cover, like, our apartment and probably get RSM very very angry at us. Last we checked, SSI isn't exactly the greatest income source for doing that lol

Jase2985

13420 posts

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#3287567 29-Sep-2024 14:27

ThatPrettyFreya:

@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

lol you are delusional if you think that could happen, think of the investment that has already been put into getting coverage pretty much everywhere in NZ. they ain't coming here

USA does not have this, their coverage is very patchy outside the main centres and is also super slow.

Hop down off your soapbox.

ThatPrettyFreya

198 posts

Master Geek

#3287568 29-Sep-2024 14:29

@Jase2985

Counterpoint: drove from Seattle to Portland and back, perfect coverage the whole way. Explored US-2 and the whole stevens pass area, only got a few dropouts. Maybe WA is just really well-covered by data, we don't know, but damn

cddt

1501 posts

Uber Geek

#3287616 29-Sep-2024 14:42

ThatPrettyFreya:

data like it's 2006 and we're still starting and ending data sessions on our Nokia E61I running Symbian.

Not sure if you recall, but in 2010, the going rate for 100 MB of data was $10 (no rollover). Not sure how it was four years before that.

I'm not sure what you're doing with your phone, but with fast wifi at home and at work I'm using about 400 MB / month of mobile data (wasn't sure so just checked). I for one obviously don't need bigger and more expensive data plans...

My referral links: BigPipe | Mercury

ThatPrettyFreya

198 posts

Master Geek

#3287629 29-Sep-2024 14:46

@cddt

Sure, it's improved since 2010. But it doesn't seem to be improving any now, In 06 we think it was..... $10 for 10MB, or some stupid thing? So, sure, there are, have been, improvements, but they're very very slow. We can easily use 20+GB of mobile data in a month of we get out a fair bit, combination of the full 48KHz stereo audio streaming app we use to allow our girlfriends to come with us when we go out using stereo mics and such, basically like twitch livestreaming but for blind folks, that, plus VoIP calls, a lot of those, tethering our laptop, apple music straming... we're the kind of girl who needs what is essentially fiber connectivity, all the time, everywhere. Part of it's traumabrain, part of it's that we use a lot of data.

Jase2985

13420 posts

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#3287631 29-Sep-2024 15:03

Coverage does not indicate speed, i was in a town of 11,000 over there and was lucky to crack 10Mbps on AT&T, Hawaii was very average. i have a much better experience here.

ThatPrettyFreya

198 posts

Master Geek

#3287632 29-Sep-2024 15:04

@Jase2985

Check the speedtest we posted earlier in the thread. That was badass and we loved it. Miss it, too

decibel

311 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3287636 29-Sep-2024 15:11

I was at a meeting many years ago when Simon Moutter (then Telecom NZ COO) said that there was NOT going to be competition with Vodafone on PRICE.

Somethings haven't changed.

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