Why are NZ Telcos so stingy with mobile data allowances?

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GSManiac

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#284255 9-Apr-2021 22:32

The fact that the majority of Telcos still only offer 1.5gb of data per month for $19 is frankly criminal.
There’s been no movement on the data allowance for like 5 years.

My friend in Sydney pays $28 per month for unlimited calls / texts plus 42gb of data per month.

The best on offer in Nz at the moment is Kogan and I guess being an Australian company is the reason they offer better data caps. I pay $27.5 for unlimited calls / texts and 15gb of data per month. Plus I’m getting free 5g speeds where available. This is closer to where the other companies should be in 2021.

Everyone I know seems to be on the spark $19 plan. Why aren’t more people complaining? It’s like being stuck in 2010.

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#2690247 9-Apr-2021 23:02

Some contributors:

Population density
Terrain of NZ
Competition

There has definitely been movement on the data allowances: concepts like Consumer shared data, increased allowances, loyalty bonuses etc.

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l43a2

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#2690248 9-Apr-2021 23:19

do people really need more data? most workplaces offer wifi and most people have wifi at home, tons of free wifi in public places.. etc

Handle9

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#2690249 9-Apr-2021 23:28

Work out the cost of a mobile network in NZ and the ROI. That will lead you to your answer.

Internationally NZs plans are not very stingy.

cokemaster

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#2690251 9-Apr-2021 23:36

l43a2:

do people really need more data? most workplaces offer wifi and most people have wifi at home, tons of free wifi in public places.. etc

Public WIFI is a privacy nightmare. Give me 3G/4G/5G any day.

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openmedia

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#2690257 10-Apr-2021 00:59

cokemaster:

l43a2:

do people really need more data? most workplaces offer wifi and most people have wifi at home, tons of free wifi in public places.. etc

Public WIFI is a privacy nightmare. Give me 3G/4G/5G any day.

https://letsencrypt.org/

Generally known online as OpenMedia, now working for Red Hat APAC as a Technology Evangelist and Portfolio Architect. Still playing with MythTV and digital media on the side.

openmedia

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#2690258 10-Apr-2021 01:00

I'm on a Skinny $16 plan with 1.5GB rollover data. 90% + of the time on on wifi.

My daughter is on the same plan and under 50% of the time she is on wifi..

Generally known online as OpenMedia, now working for Red Hat APAC as a Technology Evangelist and Portfolio Architect. Still playing with MythTV and digital media on the side.

eracode

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#2690267 10-Apr-2021 05:04

l43a2:

do people really need more data? most workplaces offer wifi and most people have wifi at home, tons of free wifi in public places.. etc

Yep - I get 1.5 GB per month from 2D which carries over for up to 12 months and currently have 11 GB stacked up in my account.

Sometimes I just sit and think. Other times I just sit.

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Linux

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#2690275 10-Apr-2021 07:07

Mobile data is cheap as chips!

timmmay

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#2690277 10-Apr-2021 07:15

Skinny increases allowances occasionally.

KiwiSurfer

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#2690279 10-Apr-2021 07:24

Going overseas I am often struck by how much better the LTE coverage and LTE available capacity is here in NZ. Cheaper isn't always better. I still haven't forgotten my trip to the UK in 2015 where I was stunned to find 4G was pretty much siloed to the main cities with many areas around England still on 3G (and some even only had 2G). Making things worse was the capacity issues--where it was 2G only data was next to unusable whereas 3G was so slow I could only really use it for text-based chat. At that time NZ had 4G in pretty much every town across all 3 networks with plenty of capacity. Never complained about the prices in NZ since--would rather pay more and have the level of coverage and capacity we enjoy. Where I live, I am within range of 3x each of Vodafone/Spark/2degrees towers all with plenty of LTE capacity across several bands. I know plenty of countries overseas (including first world countries) where this would quite easily not be the case.

SirHumphreyAppleby

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#2690280 10-Apr-2021 07:25

GSManiac:
Everyone I know seems to be on the spark $19 plan. Why aren’t more people complaining? It’s like being stuck in 2010.

I'm moving to the Kogan $15 plan in a few days due to Skinny ending our 30 plan. I'm not a big data user, so the small bit of data I received was enough for me. The bit that annoys me is that data is been used as a means to force users onto plans rather than casual rates. Casual rates for text messages with most providers are still $0.20 per message. That's the price they were in the late '90s! It's absurd to be paying $1310.72 per megabyte in 2021 for text messaging when they are practically free. Bundling forces users to pay for services they don't need or want. Casual rates need to be brought in line with regulated figures.

The Commerce Commission did recently took submissions on improving retail services. You can find a summary of responses here. Data prices is amongst the points complained about.

Handle9

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#2690283 10-Apr-2021 07:42

SirHumphreyAppleby:
I'm moving to the Kogan $15 plan in a few days due to Skinny ending our 30 plan. I'm not a big data user, so the small bit of data I received was enough for me. The bit that annoys me is that data is been used as a means to force users onto plans rather than casual rates. Casual rates for text messages with most providers are still $0.20 per message. That's the price they were in the late '90s! It's absurd to be paying $1310.72 per megabyte in 2021 for text messaging when they are practically free. Bundling forces users to pay for services they don't need or want. Casual rates need to be brought in line with regulated figures.

The Commerce Commission did recently took submissions on improving retail services. You can find a summary of responses here. Data prices is amongst the points complained about.

To make that viable then you'd need to wear a monthly connection fee. Each individual message has a very low variable cost and a very high fixed cost. You need to recover that fixed cost somehow.

quickymart

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#2690287 10-Apr-2021 07:53

I still remember back in 2006 when Vodafone launched 1GB of data for $50 a month. Then-Telecom wasn't too far behind - but I don't remember hearing many complaints about the price back then.

1.5GB for $19 today is a much better deal.