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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#3288092 30-Sep-2024 11:54

aj6828:

Rocket mobile and mighty mobile has the best bang for the buck 😁

Have to agree with this one, the $40 a month Unlimited everything for 12 months Mighty Mobile offer was the nail in the coffin for me to switch out from Spark after 9+ years (Previously was on the $99 grandfathered unlimited + companion plan)

As someone who travels a lot for personal and work, I use 70-120GB a month regularly so it's the perfect plan for me.

Any comments made are my personal views and does not represent those of my employer

quickymart

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#3288375 30-Sep-2024 19:31

stevenn:

One thing I think we really need right now is to have our 4g coverage un "shrunk" because 3g right now is appalling. I can no longer load the basic google homepage and calls are now a joke over 3g.

Someone said on here previously (I think John?) that as soon as 3G is switched off, 4G coverage will be extended out to mirror the current 3G footprint.

olivernz

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#3289961 2-Oct-2024 11:26

Can I just say, what we might be lacking in 4/5G we more than make up in fibre. NZ is really advanced when it comes to fibre accessibility and speeds. Kudos to Chorus, govt & Co for that. To me that is 10x more important than any mobile speed. I realise that differs from person to person but it's not all doom and gloom. We can always argue pricing and that things should be cheaper.

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#3290073 2-Oct-2024 13:51

I might be burnt for this but low end mobile in NZ has been fairly stagnant for a while, it’s the medium value plans where the value can truly be found.

I have mobile accounts on both sides of the ditch:
- I’m quite happy with my One ‘portfolio’ of mobiles and fibre lines. If you can pull together a few mobiles (eg. 5 or 6), you can get better pricing than the normal consumer offerings and/or discounts on whole of business.
- There is no doubt you get significantly better value mobile-wise in AU. I have 5 connections over here and the smallest is 100GB endless data for $30AUD. Calling inclusions are significantly better eg. Included international calling to 30+ countries etc.
- Coverage between the three NZ operators is MUCH more consistent than what we have in AU (where it goes Telstra -> Optus -> Optus).

With NZ mobiles - I recommend simply going for the provider that offers the best value for dollar. All of the telcos engage in outsourcing for one thing or another and have fairly regular reorgs… so I wouldn’t base any decision on the values of the brand TBH. That being said - Jason P at One has been a godsend when you get stuck with One and sends regular updates to customers.

RE: the fibre commentary- NBN/Opticomm FTTH is still more expensive than NZ and has significantly lower upstream speeds (eg. Residential 1GBPS only has 50mbps upload).

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#3290146 2-Oct-2024 17:25

I must admit I'm curious as to what residential usage would constitute clocking up 4.25Tb in a month? Backups? Streaming?

Mind you though I suppose it also depends on how many people live at the property.

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#3290299 2-Oct-2024 22:51

olivernz: Can I just say, what we might be lacking in 4/5G we more than make up in fibre. NZ is really advanced when it comes to fibre accessibility and speeds. Kudos to Chorus, govt & Co for that.

No, you may not 😬😁. It is not that great. After all this time.. it really isn't great.

Fibre map of Auckland centered on Manukau. Imo if you have a road you should have fibre access by now end of story - that is not the case.

For extra entertainment zoom in on that the middle of Manukau, giant chunk around Barry Curtis with no fibre. I'm aware of the economics argument I just don't like it : )

https://www.chorus.co.nz/help/tools/broadband-availability-map

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#3290302 2-Oct-2024 22:56

Bear in mind those properties could be part of subdivisions (it certainly looks like they may be from Google Maps), that would not have been part of the nationwide rollout, instead their fibre installation would have been arranged/paid for by the developer. They wouldn't necessarily appear on the map.

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#3290303 2-Oct-2024 22:58

Center on Westgate where the new data centers are. A few km either side - no fibre. I know I'm being a bit mean and ignoring RBI and all that but still..

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#3290304 2-Oct-2024 23:00

gzt:

Center on Westgate where the new data centers are. A few km either side - no fibre. I know I'm being a bit mean and ignoring RBI and all that but still..

If I'm looking in the right place, that's probably a subdivision too (see above). I know there's a lot of new properties being built in that area, which are also probably outside of the nationwide rollout area.

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#3290309 3-Oct-2024 00:07

gzt:

Imo if you have a road you should have fibre access by now end of story - that is not the case.

If you have a road you can get fibre. You just have to pay for the installation.

Expecting the government to subsidize entirely uneconomically viable installations isn't reasonable. Every area you live in involves tradeoffs, this is one of them.

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#3290351 3-Oct-2024 08:59

quickymart:

Bear in mind those properties could be part of subdivisions (it certainly looks like they may be from Google Maps), that would not have been part of the nationwide rollout, instead their fibre installation would have been arranged/paid for by the developer. They wouldn't necessarily appear on the map.

If I'm not mistaken, developers do not have to run fibre if alternatives are available. FWA counts as an alternative, leading to unhappy residents.

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#3290446 3-Oct-2024 12:53

I appreciate mobile prices are not great on this side of the ditch. However people in NZ also need to be mindful the quality/coverage over there is quite poor compared to NZ. In Australia, outside the main capital cities coverage can be hard to come by. Even big towns may only have limited coverage from only one or two carriers. Compare this to NZ where almost every town (even the tiny ones) has excellent coverage/capacity from all 3 players. The level of coverage/capacity we enjoy here is hard find overseas. Part of the reason for that is the companies have enough income to justify building out capacity/coverage -- but I do acknowledge the govt funding is good here through RCG/RBI etc.

One example I love to use is a town I visited in Victoria. A medium-sized town. Telstra had a single onmi antenna with a single L700 carrier serving the entire town and rural districts. Optus has a 3-sector site (ironically co-located with Telstra) with plenty of capacity. Vodafone AU has nothing at all. Here in NZ the same size town would have full service from One, Spark and 2degrees from 3-sector sites and in most bands -- and maybe even an extra site or two. In Australia you're pretty much stuck with whatever carrier happens to service your region well -- whereas here in NZ you have the choice of any of the 3 carriers almost anywhere in NZ.

TBH I prefer the NZ approach to things. I wouldn't look at Australia, USA, UK etc as a good example of how to do mobile data well. Might be cheap but QOS suffers as a result.

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#3297333 14-Oct-2024 17:20

ThatPrettyFreya:

@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>

I was in Fiji last month - 125 GB for $18NZD on Vodafone, even cheaper on Digicel.

Fiji is great for price because it has to be. Most people don't have a fixed broadband connection at home to fall back on, or any connection at all. It seems absurdly cheap to us, but to the locals they find it expensive.

A consequence of the cheap data, and the cellular networks functioning as the sole connection for most is that the network is absolutely hammered, particularly from 7-11pm and 6-8am. Say goodbye to your 100Mbps+ you expect here on One or Spark. Vodafone has B3 only in most of Suva and B20/B3 in the rest of the country. You're lucky to get over 10Mbps in Suva and because most homes/buildings are concrete, as soon as you go indoors you're dropping down to EDGE/H+ and lucky to have data outside of Suva CBD. It wasn't until I was in Rakiraki/Vanua Levu/Ba that speeds were reliably over 100Mbps+ as there are fewer people and newer infrastructure.

The network coverage is genuinely impressive though. Coverage outside the cities and towns is better or comparable to NZ - on the Kings/Queens road that spans Viti Levu there aren't too many black spots, in a few places it drops down to 3G though - but there aren't many places you won't notice a cell tower on a nearby hill, there are towers everywhere you look. 5G will be a gamechanger for Fijians, but sadly most handsets over there probably don't support it right now. If you wanted to make a fortune a good way to do it would be to sell technology at a comparable price Asian/Australian markets pay for it in Fiji, handsets are $200-$1k NZD more expensive than what we pay here despite Fijians having far less disposable income. A 15PM 512GB was selling for $3.7k NZD after the 16 had come out, a stock-standard S24 $1.7-2k+ NZD.

Starlink has entered the market over there at a very interesting price point ($84NZ/mo for the standard plan) so it will be interesting to see what impact it makes on the middle/upper class, some villages/schools/govt buildings may even deploy it in communal spaces. As it stands right now though a Starlink dish is the ultimate indicator of wealth and makes you a target for break-ins, lol. But in the long-term, it will probably help ease network availability as fixed-line DSL connections are uncommon and fibre is non-existent outside of Denarau and the diplomatic/university neighbourhoods of Suva.

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#3309845 17-Nov-2024 13:33

@thatprettyfreya did you get back from your holiday yet? If so how did you get on with Full Flavour, etc? I'm curious to see if they were able to help you out.

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#3327668 5-Jan-2025 11:08

I have plenty of data with my kogan and skinny dual sim setup. But I find so many black spots. Eg where I am now in the city of Dunedin 2.0km from the CBD the kogan won't work and the skinny is showing H/H+. Can't wait for Vodafone starlink to come to prepay!

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