I've got a letter in the mail last week explaining that Ztalk will be changing from a 15 minute billing to a per minute billing. If you don't know, Ztalk is TelstraClear's long distance (international and national) calling plans.

Once you subscribe your phone number (Telecom, or any other landline) you will have the option to dial 0505 in front of any other number, thus selecting Ztalk as the carrier. They also provide you (or they did when I enrolled years ago, not sure now) wit a calling card and a 0800 number you can call locally (and from overseas!) and have the call charged to your account.

I have been using this for years now. The only problem I found is that while overseas I can dial the TelstraClear number but can't use it to "trombone" a call to another overseas number - it's only available to New Zealand national calls if you are outside the country.

Anyway, back to the topic. The letter. It explained that an attached sheet would have all the new rates. There was no attached sheet though. I logged a request on-line and received a nice reply from their customer services saying that a new letter would be sent to me. I got it today (good service there!)

The new calling plan is now billed on a minute basis, while it was on 15 minute basis. Also the previous plan had a 15 second free starter period, which is now gone. Looking at the prices though the costs will be reduced.

Previously calling Australia, US or the UK would cost $1.99/15 minutes. Now it will be charged at $.10/minute, so it's coming down to $1.50/15 minutes. Not bad.

Calls to New Zealand mobile are coming to $.45/minute, down from $.59/minute (mobile calls were always billed by the minute). again, not bad, but you might be better off using some of your mobile plans for this.

The surprise is the increase in price for New Zealand landline calls. Those are going up from $.99/15 minutes to $.10/minute (or $1.50/15 minutes). An increase, yes, but still cheaper than the TelstraClear Residential Plans.

Also interesting is this note on the bottom of the sheet: "0505 Ztalk access is not available to TelstraClear cable network customers". What? I've been using this for years. Or is this only supposed to be available to Telecom customers?

Ooops. I guess now TelstraClear is going to remove my Ztalk account.

Trivia: the most expensive place to call with Ztalk is St Helena, at $2/minute.