Comparing differences in NZ and Australian landline/internet

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#978948 2-Feb-2014 16:33

eXDee:
blakamin:
eXDee: 4G in Australia is great with their large data caps. It'll be great if and when we get similar plans.

Been here recently? In the last 18 months the major telcos have been dropping the data and still charging the same price. Look at the $60 dollar plans on optus and telstra... they used to have 2-3 gig... now they're 1-1.5.
Their excuse? "Most customers are only using 52% of their data".

I actually paid the ETF to get out of Optus after switching to 4G put me on a lower data contract, without them telling me. Now i'm with Amaysim... No 4G, but unlimited calls, texts, 4gig of data (free for social networks) and $0.06 per minute calls to NZ, no flagfall. $40 a month, no contract.

Edit: while the Optus $2 a day is good, Amaysim lets me stream from google play all access for free too (they must class it as a social network, probably accidently).

I was only looking at prepaid plans, even if i lived there i'd still probably only look at prepaid plans unless there was a huge difference in value (eg in japan, you pay a ton on prepaid vs postpaid.)

I was there in november and december. I did notice $2 days used to be 3G only with a 1gb limit per day, but they halved this for the 4G plan. Its still a lot of data though.
I briefly compared vodafone and telstra's offerings, but nothing came close to the value for money for a short trip over there. I really hated vodafone's stupid inflated credit numbers - top up $20 and get $400 worth of credit! Does nothing at all for me having an inflated and pointless scale. Bet it gets quite a lot of people with the marketing aspect of it though.

.
All on account plans have "pay $XX and get $XXX worth of credit" unless they have unlimited calls. Damn annoying!
When I was still on Optus, I used 600MB a day easily... I used to turn data off. Now with amaysim, I'm lucky if I use 2GB, mainly because of the free data.

vbarnao

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#978950 2-Feb-2014 16:36

Regarding those 2 hr calls.

My mum who sometimes talks to her sister who is on a landline for 2 sometimes 3 hours. I know it is amazing as I have no idea how they can talk so long.

farcus

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#978985 2-Feb-2014 18:12

vbarnao: . . . seem to have a 2hr cap on international calls and national calls I think you guys refer to them as tolls (which we in Australia call a toll when you pay to go over a bridge lol

toll call

nathan

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#979030 2-Feb-2014 20:27

blakamin:
eXDee: 4G in Australia is great with their large data caps. It'll be great if and when we get similar plans.

Been here recently? In the last 18 months the major telcos have been dropping the data and still charging the same price. Look at the $60 dollar plans on optus and telstra... they used to have 2-3 gig... now they're 1-1.5.
Their excuse? "Most customers are only using 52% of their data".

I actually paid the ETF to get out of Optus after switching to 4G put me on a lower data contract, without them telling me. Now i'm with Amaysim... No 4G, but unlimited calls, texts, 4gig of data (free for social networks) and $0.06 per minute calls to NZ, no flagfall. $40 a month, no contract.

Edit: while the Optus $2 a day is good, Amaysim lets me stream from google play all access for free too (they must class it as a social network, probably accidently).

How does Amaysim work/make money like that compared to Optus? Aren't they a MVNO using the Optus network?

blakamin

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#979033 2-Feb-2014 20:35

nathan:
blakamin:
eXDee: 4G in Australia is great with their large data caps. It'll be great if and when we get similar plans.

Been here recently? In the last 18 months the major telcos have been dropping the data and still charging the same price. Look at the $60 dollar plans on optus and telstra... they used to have 2-3 gig... now they're 1-1.5.
Their excuse? "Most customers are only using 52% of their data".

I actually paid the ETF to get out of Optus after switching to 4G put me on a lower data contract, without them telling me. Now i'm with Amaysim... No 4G, but unlimited calls, texts, 4gig of data (free for social networks) and $0.06 per minute calls to NZ, no flagfall. $40 a month, no contract.

Edit: while the Optus $2 a day is good, Amaysim lets me stream from google play all access for free too (they must class it as a social network, probably accidently).

How does Amaysim work/make money like that compared to Optus? Aren't they a MVNO using the Optus network?

Lol, no idea. They are an MVNO!
Maybe because they don't have 4G? They don't subsidise handsets like the big 3.
Or Optus might even prioritise some traffic, I do get a slow down during lunch at work, but we're in an industrial area and everyone stops at 12. Pretty sure it happened with Optus too.
Other than that, I've never had an issue with speed or connections.

sbiddle

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#979035 2-Feb-2014 20:41

The only problem with Optus and Amaysim (and every other Optus MVNO) is their 1MB data session rounding. This can very quickly chew through data - based on a couple of estimates from my phone usage on various trips to Aussie with ActiveSync on and plenty of apps you'll get roughly 300MB of actual data for a 1GB data pack.

blakamin

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#979061 2-Feb-2014 21:30

sbiddle: The only problem with Optus and Amaysim (and every other Optus MVNO) is their 1MB data session rounding. This can very quickly chew through data - based on a couple of estimates from my phone usage on various trips to Aussie with ActiveSync on and plenty of apps you'll get roughly 300MB of actual data for a 1GB data pack.

That's weird, because I actually use way less data with amaysim than I did with optus... by actual gigs. And I have every feature on my phone on.
According to Amaysim app, I've used less than a gig in the last 29 days, but 3G watchdog pro says 2.5GB. (with social media excluded)
If I count all data it says 4.7GB.
That free social media bit is awesome. The only social media I use is Plume and it's usage is 1.2GB. It's obviously counting Google music under social media too, because that's nearly 2GB.

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#979067 2-Feb-2014 21:41

recently you could pay $16 and get 1gb data 180min unlimited txt for 30 days

(nowadays for mobile you could pay $19 and get 560mb data 100 mins unlimited txt to any network, and 5GB of free data from a phone booth a day)

in oz if you top up less than $30 your money only holds its value for 14 days

nathan

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#979077 2-Feb-2014 21:59

What's this pay $xx get $xxx credit rubbish that they have in AU?

confusion reigning supreme?

nakedmolerat

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#979078 2-Feb-2014 22:01

vbarnao: Vodafone Australia has terrible coverage too in smaller less populated areas .

My feeling it is the same as well here in NZ. They are good in most major centres. Telecom seems to have superior overall coverage.

blakamin

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#979096 2-Feb-2014 22:12

nathan: What's this pay $xx get $xxx credit rubbish that they have in AU?

confusion reigning supreme?

It's instead of giving you minutes... $xxx of credit can be used for text, calls, mms...

blakamin

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#979097 2-Feb-2014 22:14

nakedmolerat:
vbarnao: Vodafone Australia has terrible coverage too in smaller less populated areas .

My feeling it is the same as well here in NZ. They are good in most major centres. Telecom seems to have superior overall coverage.

VFAU was 10 times worse until recently... now only 5x.

raytaylor

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#979107 2-Feb-2014 22:50

I find it amazing how NZ residents dont know (as fred dagg would say) how lucky we are.

We have free local calls for residential landlines
We have 10mbit to almost every urban home via DSL and something like 70%? of those can get VDSL

Wiring standards here have been historically 24awg where as in the USA its 26awg so DSL goes further here. Its a huge limiting factor which is why you see in many regional cities over there their DSL plans are eg. 1.5mbit, 3mbit and 6mbit.
Sure they may be "unlimited", but you still require a POTS landline and have to pay for local calls.

At the end of the day, $99 for a POTS landline with free local calling and unlimited DSL broadband in NZ is actually value for money- especially as the DSL probably runs between 10mbit and 16mbits.

Someone told me that when the Japanese techs from NEC first started installing NEAX systems into the post office exchanges, they were bewildered by how much new zealanders call each other and massively under spec'd the first couple they installed because they underestimated how different our call patterns are due to the free local calling.

I understand australia is full of conklins (even in urban areas and greenfield developments) and you pay for local calls.

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#979130 2-Feb-2014 23:28

I used to pay $49 and get 3gb plus $700 to do whatever i like

$1 local calls / min
$1 overseas call / min
$5 roaming / min

That was awesome

But ... I could use up the data in melbourne central coz my connection was 100kbps down 50kbps up (b=bits) ... So the halfed my cost and i paid $25

sbiddle

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#979187 3-Feb-2014 07:58

nathan: What's this pay $xx get $xxx credit rubbish that they have in AU?

confusion reigning supreme?

It's not really that confusing.

Basically you have a fixed price for calls / data/ sms which is the same as here. Competition ultimately caused those plans to exist - many years ago things started off simply by buying for example a $30 on account plan or prepaid plan that gave you x cents per minute, x cents for sms and x $ per MB for data. As competition hotted up rather than reducing the rates they simply started increasing the cap, meaning you then for say $100 worth of value for $30.

It does mean it's a little hard to actually work out the true cost of a call as it may be 1/10th of the actual price you pay, but it's not really that confusing.

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