One thing I don't get about the B&W pricing

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NonprayingMantis

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#27496 28-Oct-2008 14:48

reading the herald article abotu B&W pricing today something struck me as unusual

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10539709

Black+White chief executive and owner of the company, Johnathan Eele, said 70 per cent of New Zealand's 4.1 million mobile phone users had pre-paid phones compared with 40 per cent internationally.
He said they paid a higher calling rate than users on a 24 or 36-month contract.
The new service offered today offered 30-day maximum contracts, 600 free texts a month and a maximum calling rate of 60 cents a minute.
He said the pre-pay rate at anytime on other networks was normally 89 cents a minute.
"The potential is massive, 70 per cent of New Zealanders are on pre-pay which means they could all move tomorrow."

B&W seem to be really targeting the prepay market from the sound of that article.

so comparing to, say, Telecom it sounds reasonably competitive for prepay peeps at first glance. pay 60c instead of 89c per minute on Go Prepaid.

but... with prepaid on Telecom (or voda) there is no monthly fee - you pay 89c per minute anytime and that is it. With B&W it seems you have to pay $30/month then your calls on top of that

http://www.bw.co.nz/plan

The Plan + 600 = $30/month

Access + just pay for calls you make
60 cents per minute to any NZ number anytime
That's 29 cents less than anytime any net mins on most prepay plans
600 texts per month to any NZ mobile at no charge
Extra texts are 20 cents

or see here
http://www.bw.co.nz/docs/BW_LOC.pdf

The Plan	Monthly Charge	Included NZ Mins	Included NZ Texts	Casual Data MB	Voice and Video Nat	Voice Int - Top 5	Voice Int - other
The Plan + 600	30.00$	0	600	11.25$	0.60$	0.49$	1.39

so aside from the monthly bill vs prepay top up factor which in itself could put some people off, an existing prepay customer is only better off on B&W if you use more than around 70 mins a month - which very few prepay customers actually do, or a lot more than 500 texts per month, which very few prepay cuistomers do.

Assuming $10 text:

Using 20 mins/month
Telecom 89c/min.    20 mins = $17.80 + $10 text = $27.80
B&W   60c/min 20 mins = $12 + $30 monthly fee = $42.00
Much Better with Telecom

Using 50 mins/month
Telecom 89c/min.    50 mins = $44.50 + $10 text = $54.50
B&W   60c/min 50 mins = $30 + $30 monthly fee = $60.00
Slightly Better with Telecom

Using 70 mins/month
Telecom 89c/min.    70 mins = $62.30 + $10 text = $72.30
B&W   60c/min 70 mins = $42 + $30 monthly fee = $72.00
About equal

(anyone want to check my maths? I might be wrong)

Pretty sure the same applies for voda too – I haven’t checked the numbers though

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Biddle Corp

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#174105 28-Oct-2008 15:45

Their press release very much indicated prepay users are their target market as well.

I'm assuming that all calls are rounded up to the nearest minute after the 1st minute - can anybody confirm this?

manhinli

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#174109 28-Oct-2008 15:51

(d) There is a minimum one minute charge for each voice call. After that your call gets charged by the second. If You call an 0900 or special number You will be charged the rate as published by the service provider of that number, plus your normal airtime rate.

Woohoo! Minute+Second call pricing

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marmel

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#174111 28-Oct-2008 15:54

Unless they do something drastic with their plans I can't see them lasting too long. If prepay is their target market then they have missed it by a long way. As pointed out above unless you use about 70+ minutes a month you would be better off with telecom or vf.

I would be pretty suprised if the percentage of prepay users that fall into this catergory is much more than 5% if that.

Once you start to get into that amount of usage most people switch to a post paid plan.

I guess it must be hard for them though I can't imagine there is a lot of margin due to them having to pay vf to use the network.

munchkin

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#174112 28-Oct-2008 15:55

Prepay calling prices are as low as $0.49/minute on Telecom if you are on "Mates-Rates", this charge structure does cost you mroe to calloutside of the telecom network, though.

sbiddle

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#174113 28-Oct-2008 15:56

That makes the chart by the OP rather meaningless since it doesn't reflect actual call usage.

It's still worse value for low end customers and really does surprise me they are trying to target a market than has an APRU that is lower than their cheapest plan.

NonprayingMantis

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#174129 28-Oct-2008 16:18

sbiddle:
That makes the chart by the OP rather meaningless since it doesn't reflect actual call usage.

It's still worse value for low end customers and really does surprise me they are trying to target a market than has an APRU that is lower than their cheapest plan.

Chart? What chart? Youi mean the tables and calculations? You’re right, that does change things, since Telecom round to the nearest minute - so makes the B&W situation better

All calls under 1min (the majority I would imagine for prepaid customers) will work out the same, and depending on how many calls you make over 1m and how close they are to the exact minute it brings things closer for customers on lower usage.

Still, the average number of mins for prepay users must be tiny, (at least, going by the ARPUs that Telecom and Voda release it can’t be more than about ten/fifteen mins per month) so the majority will still be better off sticking where they are

zocster

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#174133 28-Oct-2008 16:21

hmm texter plan seems better for me on vodafone for now anyway.

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Overclocker01

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#174163 28-Oct-2008 17:26

Frankly I think the plans are BS, $30.00 for access + 600 txts is a joke. I am currently on a VF txter plan and I get 600 txts, 60 minutes anytime, any nz No., and 1x best mate for $40.00 a month. The same setup on on B+W would cost $72.00 (36.00 for txts / best mate + 36.00 for calling) B+W need to get rid of that access fee to be competitive. You would have to be spending some serious coin for B+W to work out cheaper....

kingjj

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#174177 28-Oct-2008 18:13

Overclocker01: Frankly I think the plans are BS, $30.00 for access + 600 txts is a joke. I am currently on a VF txter plan and I get 600 txts, 60 minutes anytime, any nz No., and 1x best mate for $40.00 a month. The same setup on on B+W would cost $72.00 (36.00 for txts / best mate + 36.00 for calling) B+W need to get rid of that access fee to be competitive. You would have to be spending some serious coin for B+W to work out cheaper....

Couldn't agree with you more! When I read the pricing plans on their website I had to come to GeekZone to confirm that I wasn't missing something and they really were awesome deals! Thankfully I wasn't missing anything and the plans really are not competitive. Personally on Best Mates Go One Bill I spend around 30 per month for 2000 texts, 30 minutes calling and one Favourite (unlimited calls to one telecom number for $6). I have four cellphones and a landline on my telecom account and the bill is usually around $120, would shudder to think what that would get me with BW. Hopefully they update their offer to remove the access fee.

JoeBloggs

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#174187 28-Oct-2008 18:40

Those plans are worse than Vodafones. They're almost identical to the Texter deals, but worse. Who's backing these jokers?

paradoxsm

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#174190 28-Oct-2008 18:43

I would consider Telecom flexi Mytime and Vodafone Starter (Choose 30 bonus pack) to be possibly "Prepaid equivalents" but certainly not the B+W offering which seems nothing short of just plain horrendously expensive to me. Again we see that "49c to call Australia" but "60c to call up the road" gouging again.

profrink

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#174204 28-Oct-2008 19:36

All I want is companies to offer "message packages" similar to how most providers in the US do, cut the "x-provider to x-provider texts only" and offer "minutes packages" also, or charge at a decent p/min rate.

Prepaid add ons are a good way to go.

NonprayingMantis

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#174211 28-Oct-2008 19:59

profrink: All I want is companies to offer "message packages" similar to how most providers in the US do, cut the "x-provider to x-provider texts only"

kinda like $10 text - 500 texts to any network for $10?

profrink

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#174216 28-Oct-2008 20:11

NonprayingMantis:
profrink: All I want is companies to offer "message packages" similar to how most providers in the US do, cut the "x-provider to x-provider texts only"
kinda like $10 text - 500 texts to any network for $10?

Yeap along those lines... but with the option to keep purchasing "packages" once I use up my allocation, also different package amounts say 200, 500 & Unlimited.

Would be pushing it, but a messaging package would be classed as any combination of SMS, PXT & IM. (like overseas)

jnimmo

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#174230 28-Oct-2008 20:52

The TelstraClear $20/month plan seems to be much better value than this...

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