VF's parallel import topic

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › VF's parallel import topic

rayonline

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#62126 30-May-2010 20:23

I cannot post there, so I will post here.

It's not very fair for those travelers or business people travelling to NZ with a international roaming cellphone. They've signed for a contract pay ridiculous prices and then you say dropped calls might happen and if you wanna fix it, go to Vodafone and buy a new phone and be put on a NZ number on a different pricing plan and then you need to advise all your associates of your new phone number?

freitasm

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#336360 30-May-2010 20:32

Are just talking about inbound roaming visitors, or about someone buying an imported handset for local use?

Hypotetically, if it is a local network problem then obviously buying a handset and SIM card locally won't solve the problem.

Do you have some hard evidence of this happening, and if the calls dropped are because of roaming users' handsets or roaming agreements, to justify the suggestion of buying a local kit?

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johnr

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#336363 30-May-2010 20:37

Huh?

rayonline

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#336377 30-May-2010 21:08

freitasm: Are just talking about inbound roaming visitors, or about someone buying an imported handset for local use?

Hypotetically, if it is a local network problem then obviously buying a handset and SIM card locally won't solve the problem.

Do you have some hard evidence of this happening, and if the calls dropped are because of roaming users' handsets or roaming agreements, to justify the suggestion of buying a local kit?

No, I was basing it off Vodafone's information on their website. If it happens to be a NZ resident who buys a phone overseas or is a traveler on business who takes their own phone with them overseas. If a person does get dropped calls, VF's seems to say the phone "may not be completely compatible" with their network.

SteveON

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#336395 30-May-2010 21:56

rayonline:
freitasm: Are just talking about inbound roaming visitors, or about someone buying an imported handset for local use?

Hypotetically, if it is a local network problem then obviously buying a handset and SIM card locally won't solve the problem.

Do you have some hard evidence of this happening, and if the calls dropped are because of roaming users' handsets or roaming agreements, to justify the suggestion of buying a local kit?

No, I was basing it off Vodafone's information on their website. If it happens to be a NZ resident who buys a phone overseas or is a traveler on business who takes their own phone with them overseas. If a person does get dropped calls, VF's seems to say the phone "may not be completely compatible" with their network.

Dropped calls are very common overseas... In some built-up places like New York its as high as 30% but in some places like London is 1 in 20ish..

sbiddle

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#336442 31-May-2010 07:21

It's pretty much just a disclaimer - it doesn't mean that an imported phone will drop calls BUT in the early days there have been instances where a GSM phone has been launched and caused serious grief on networks.

I remember in what was either the late BellSouth or early Vodafone says the launch on a new Ericsson and NZ was one of the first countries to get it. There was a free upgrade deal and I believe they sold around 5000 in a week and then started getting issues reported and discovered incompatibility issues with the phone that required firmware updates to fix.

freitasm

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#336461 31-May-2010 09:05

Like Steve, I think this is just a "warning", as in if you bring a parallel imported phone and it doesn't work, don't expect Vodafone to go testing it just for you.

Vodafone (and others) test their handsets (and even so sometimes things are missed). You can imagine the hell it would be if everyone importing a fake handset from China wanted Vodafone or Telecom to test their networks everytime something went wrong.