Prepay plans that aren't - false advertising?

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neb

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#300788 4-Oct-2022 20:02

Needed to set up a WAN backup for a fibre connection that's gone down twice in the past two weeks after "transparent" upgrade/maintenance work, requiring a power-cycle of the ONT each time to restore service after about 30 minutes of trying everything else. I figured it'd be easy enough, set up an old phone as a hotspot, drop in a prepay SIM and load it with 1GB of data, refreshing once a year to keep it active or if the data quantity drops too far, for a total cost of $20-25.

Except that Prepay SIMs don't seem to exist any more in NZ. Or at least there are still things called Prepay SIMs, but they're just on-account SIMs under a false name. From a quick search:

Vodafone: "Pay Monthly" plan, https://www.vodafone.co.nz/pay-monthly, where you pay monthly and get a fixed quota of minutes, data, etc. "Prepay" plan, https://www.vodafone.co.nz/prepay, where you pay monthly and get a fixed quota of minutes, data, etc.

2Degrees: "Pay Monthly", https://www.2degrees.nz/mobile-plans/pay-monthly, where you pay monthly and get a fixed quota of minutes, data, etc. "Prepay" plan, https://www.2degrees.nz/mobile-plans/prepay, where you pay monthly and get a fixed quota of minutes, data, etc.

Skinny: "Prepay Mobile Plans", https://www.skinny.co.nz/pricing/plans, where you pay monthly and get a fixed quota of minutes, data, etc.

Spark: "Pay Monthly", https://www.spark.co.nz/online/mobile-plans?category=postpaid, where you pay monthly and get a fixed quota of minutes, data, etc. "Prepaid", https://www.spark.co.nz/online/mobile-plans?category=prepaid_retail_extra, where you pay monthly and get a fixed quota of minutes, data, etc.

Kogan Mobile: "Prepay Plans", https://www.koganmobile.co.nz/, where you pay monthly and get a fixed quota of minutes, data, etc.

Warehouse Mobile: The only honest one, just "Our plans", https://www.warehousemobile.co.nz/pricing, where you pay monthly and get a fixed quota of minutes, data, etc.

Some questions:

* Is this actually valid? I realise you can call a plan the Queen of Sheba if you want, but these are just standard pay-monthly on-account plans being sold as prepay plans.

* Are there really no more genuine prepay NZ SIMs available that you just load up with (say) 1GB data and that are valid for a year, not charged monthly?

At the moment it looks like the only way to do this is to get a travel SIM from an overseas provider, which is pretty ridiculous.

RunningMan

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#2977408 4-Oct-2022 20:11

Can't see anything close to false advertising. You pay in advance (i.e. pre) for what you use.

neb

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#2977409 4-Oct-2022 20:19

RunningMan:
Can't see anything close to false advertising. You pay in advance (i.e. pre) for what you use.

So what's the difference between on-account, where you pay a monthly fee for a given amount of data and minutes, and prepay, where you pay a monthly fee for a given amount of data and minutes?

Batman

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#2977412 4-Oct-2022 20:26

neb:
RunningMan:

Can't see anything close to false advertising. You pay in advance (i.e. pre) for what you use.

So what's the difference between on-account, where you pay a monthly fee for a given amount of data and minutes, and prepay, where you pay a monthly fee for a given amount of data and minutes?

prepay - buy a product upfront with real money (or load money onto the sim to buy a product later), then you use what you have bought (or use only the money you have loaded to buy stuff). once you use it up you have nothing to use, until you buy another product (or load more money).

post pay - you use whatever you want without paying a cent upfront. rack up $1 million dollars in products consumed. at the end of the month you get a bill for 1 million dollars.

RunningMan

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#2977415 4-Oct-2022 20:30

neb: So what's the difference between on-account, where you pay a monthly fee for a given amount of data and minutes, and prepay, where you pay a monthly fee for a given amount of data and minutes?

The PRE bit, You are paying in advance. They are exactly what they say they are a Prepay Plan. Because you pay in advance, there's no account application, credit checks, or (in most cases) ongoing commitment.

It sounds like you just want casual rates, not a plan, so don't look at plans, just look at the casual rates instead.

https://www.2degrees.nz/termsofuse/mobile/standard-rates/prepay/prepay-plus-rates/

https://www.vodafone.co.nz/prepay/pay-and-go/

https://www.skinny.co.nz/pricing/rates/

Just to list a few. For most people with regular recurring usage, they aren't as good of a value as a plan, but it might be what you need.

EDIT: But definitely not false advertising, just not a product suited to your particular requirement.

neb

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#2977417 4-Oct-2022 20:36

RunningMan:
It sounds like you just want casual rates, not a plan, so don't look at plans, just look at the casual rates instead.

Yeah, already had a look at those, data priced per individual MB is sort of 15-years-ago, that could be a single email. I'll probably get a 1 or 3GB one-off-cost prepaid SIM from any number of non-NZ telcos and use that. I know you can get a bunch of cheapie SIMs and cycle through them, but the whole point is to avoid having to repeatedly go to where the gear is to fiddle with it, and the pay-once SIMs (which you used to be able to get here under the name "Prepay") do that.

neb

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#2978425 7-Oct-2022 02:02

Just got a $24 prepay SIM with 2GB data that never expires from a non-NZ provider, so WAN backup is all sorted. Kinda sad that I'm getting service from Telefónica in Spain with a service and at a price that's impossible to get from a NZ provider.

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Linux

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#2978427 7-Oct-2022 06:57

Next thread why am I paying roaming data rates why is the SIM card from Spain not working and why can't I get any support and why does no one speak English why am I paying to call Spain

Edit: Why is my backup connection data traffic routing via Spain 🇪🇸

tripper1000

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#2978491 7-Oct-2022 11:08

2degrees have a free feature specifically for the OP's situation. They do data-sharing from your main account to other SIM cards/numbers so you never have to think about the prepaid SIM in your router/tablet/laptop/telemetry/trail-cam etc. Means you effectively have up to 5 (data) sim cards on the one account at no extra cost.

https://www.2degrees.nz/help/mobile-help/sharing/shared-data

I think the O.P. meant Pay-as-you-go which is what "pre-pay" still is as it defaults to this if you don't buy a package deal, but it is so expensive that no one talks about it or uses it.

neb

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#2978494 7-Oct-2022 11:12

Linux: Next thread why am I paying roaming data rates why is the SIM card from Spain not working and why can't I get any support and why does no one speak English why am I paying to call Spain

Since this is exactly the same international data SIM I've been using in my phones for years I can't see any of that happening.

Incidentally, if anyone needs a data SIM for overseas use I can recommend these ones, they're from Keepgo.

andyb

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#2988834 27-Oct-2022 15:17

You also run the risk of the SIM being blocked by the local carriers, some roaming agreements have permanent roaming clauses, ie exceeding X days in a Y period or something similar. Especially if the SIM is regularly pinging the network incurring signalling charges for very little wholesale revenue.

andyb

neb

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#2993011 7-Nov-2022 13:09

neb: Since this is exactly the same international data SIM I've been using in my phones for years I can't see any of that happening.

Just as a followup: LTE router arrived today, dropped the SIM in, waited a few minutes for it to register, and now I've got a WWAN backup link that doesn't require manually setting up the phone as a hotspot when I need it. Very cool!

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neb

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#3042518 27-Feb-2023 01:32

And a second followup, the fibre connection went out at 00:00 today (certificate expired? date rollover?) and I didn't even notice it until 90 minutes later when I got a ping to say it had been restored. So it worked perfectly when it was needed... will need to post to the Smile thread.

Behodar

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#3042528 27-Feb-2023 06:53

neb: Yeah, already had a look at those, data priced per individual MB is sort of 15-years-ago, that could be a single email.

I realise that I'm replying to a post from October, but back in the day the "$10/MB" was actually charged in smaller units, e.g. 1 cent per KB. But I've just taken a look at Skinny's website and all it says is "20c per MB to any NZ network" so who knows whether you're pinged the whole 20c as soon as you use a single byte. I also wonder why it specifies "to any NZ network"; do they really charge more if you access a foreign server and if so, what's the price? Again, it's not mentioned.