Deciding to move to 2Degrees

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › Deciding to move to 2Degrees

tek

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#195331 15-Apr-2016 22:07

Evening, I'm currently a Vodafone customer grandfathered on their Smart1 plan: 5GB of 3G data, 30min and 2500txts for $49/month. I'm considering moving to 2Degrees mainly for the Carryover Data, and I am finding myself needing more minutes.

I would like to know if 2Degrees' network is any good these days? I've looked at coverage maps, and they cover all the places I usually go, but I also leave the city from time to time for hikes and general exploring, so I would also like to know, while roaming on the Vodafone network with my 2D SIM, would I get the same 3G/4G speeds and call quality? I am a heavy data user who regularly uses up my 5GB every month. 2D also needs to be able to stream internet radio on my commute without any interruptions as Vodafone is able to do.

I've been with Vodafone for about 10 years now and their network has been rock solid, but being able to carry over my data is a huge draw to make me jump ship. I just don't want to find out after switching that the service becomes unusable after leaving the cities which some reviews I've read from 2014/2015 have lead me to believe.

Cheers for any replies
tek

P.S. I live in East Tamaki, Auckland and travel into the city daily for uni.

PhantomNVD

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#1533824 16-Apr-2016 02:44

Unless in 'boundary' 2D zones, 2D has great reception and coverages in all main cities and most larger towns, and work equally well in outer areas when switching to VF towers.

BUT the problem comes when in outer 2D areas where they think they have signal and don't let you switch over to better VF signal, but actually only have coverage on a map, but fail in RL as there's trees/new houses/subdivisions and hills they block the borderline signal from being useful... 5kms either way and you're sweet, on either 2D or VF connection, but on the edge, cr*ppy signal and no recourse available.

I'm based in Franklin so regularly got the brownout issue on the way out of Papakura as they have a 2D tower that they think covers more than it does. Out in Glenbrook/Waiuku it's back to life as usual on the VF tower (few years back my screen even read VF when on their towers too) ...

Anyway, I've been 2D for about 4 years now and love the rollover and shared data features (have way more minutes banked than I'll ever need, but happily hand it over to my wife to talk all day when hers run low/out as I use most of her 1.5GB data via 'shared data' 😂

YMMV but if the trade off works for you, and/or you're either in the city or the wops, go for it!

michaelmurfy

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#1533826 16-Apr-2016 02:57

Check Skinny out - I pay $46 per month for unlimited minutes, texts and 2.5gb rollover data. I also just had a text offering me an extra 2gb of rollover data (lasts 12 months) for $10. So far I have around 10gb of data sitting there for a rainy day.

Good pricing, good service and they use the Spark network. Well recommended.

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tek

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#1533903 16-Apr-2016 11:33

Cheers PhantomNVD and michaelmurfy

After sleeping on it I'm leaning towards Skinny now as 2Degrees seems like a hassle with the network switching. Plus I have a spark SIM in my iPad and that seems to always have 3G/4G when my phone shows nothing. But it seems no matter which network I decide on, there is always a compromise -.-

If anyone else has some feedback it would be greatly appreciated as I'll wait a day or so before making a decision

tek

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#1533904 16-Apr-2016 11:38

Oh, what are Skinny and 2D's apps like? Vodafone's app takes a lifetime to load, 12 seconds to be exact, then another 3 or so for the animations to stop. Which is too long when all I want to know is how many MB's I have left :)

Peppery

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#1533910 16-Apr-2016 12:06

I've been with 2degrees for 2 years now after becoming grumpy with how much I was paying Vodafone per month.

I'm in Auckland CBD and coverage has largely been exactly the same for me as it was with Vodafone, no major complaints here. Travelling outside of Auckland it can be a bit iffy, however in smaller centres you can manually select Vodafone if both networks are available. In Whakatane I was having some speed problems with 2D, but manually selecting VF fixed those. Never had issues elsewhere.

Can't speak about the mobile apps as I never bother using it (unlimited minutes and I have so much rollover data)

PhantomNVD

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#1533928 16-Apr-2016 12:34

tek:
Oh, what are Skinny and 2D's apps like? Vodafone's app takes a lifetime to load, 12 seconds to be exact, then another 3 or so for the animations to stop. Which is too long when all I want to know is how many MB's I have left :)

4 seconds on 2D app (iPhone 6)

But to be fair, I think the majority of the time taken is speed of network connected to? (At home now I'm on Skinny broadband in a 'just outside' supported zone so prolly a mix of these factors makes the app(s) boot time anyway?

*edit Lol, reran it on 3G (via VF out here) and got 3 secs twice in a row, so must be affected by network too! 🤓

tek

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#1533937 16-Apr-2016 12:51

PhantomNVD:
tek:

Oh, what are Skinny and 2D's apps like? Vodafone's app takes a lifetime to load, 12 seconds to be exact, then another 3 or so for the animations to stop. Which is too long when all I want to know is how many MB's I have left :)

4 seconds on 2D app (iPhone 6)

But to be fair, I think the majority of the time taken is speed of network connected to? (At home now I'm on Skinny broadband in a 'just outside' supported zone so prolly a mix of these factors makes the app(s) boot time anyway?

*edit Lol, reran it on 3G (via VF out here) and got 3 secs twice in a row, so must be affected by network too! 🤓

I have a 200/200 BigPipe connection at home with AC1900 WiFi. I get the same or longer load times weather I'm on WiFi or 3G. Must just be slow servers or an inefficient loading process.

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darkspearxz

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#1534317 17-Apr-2016 11:16

I'm thinking about doing the same thing too, but I'm currently on Spark and have been since 2013. I mainly want to switch due to bad coverage and constant tower jumping at home. I've put a 2degrees sim in another phone on my commute to try out coverage and data speeds and I found that if I'm taking the train from Panmure to Britomart I stay on LTE more of the time than on Spark and real world usage(loading Facebook/webpages) is practically identical when both phones are on LTE. I live in Howick and I also commute daily to Symonds St just up the road from UoA.

michaelmurfy

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#1534387 17-Apr-2016 13:55

tek:

Oh, what are Skinny and 2D's apps like? Vodafone's app takes a lifetime to load, 12 seconds to be exact, then another 3 or so for the animations to stop. Which is too long when all I want to know is how many MB's I have left :)

Skinny's app is really quite good. Clean, simple, does the job well, doesn't have annoying animations :) Takes 2sec (average) to launch.

littleheaven

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#1535427 19-Apr-2016 10:56

I have both a 2Degrees and a Skinny connection. I was like you, on the Smart 1 plan, until I got a letter from VF revoking it (to be fair, the 3GB of data was only supposed to last 6 months and I had it for years, but their other plans were too expensive for the data I wanted at the time). So I changed to 2Degrees and I've been very happy with them. I don't use a lot of data normally but like the option to be able to hotspot my computer or iPad to my phone if I need to, and I've started streaming Spotify in the car. They gave me 4GB just for paying by direct debit at one point, so now I consistently sit at 12GB available data. I don't go out of Auckland much though, so coverage isn't an issue. I get 4G in most places, although when I worked in a big building in Takapuna that was covered in metal sun-shading grilles, it could be patchy. The app is clean and easy to read and loads in less than 2sec on my iPhone 6S. Swapping over from VF was no drama.

I have the Skinny plan on the phone I use for my freelancing business - the data allowance is less than my 2Degrees plan but so is the cost. I'm on a cheap pre-pay plan and I've accumulated up to 3GB and 668 minutes so far. Most of my work is by email so that suits perfectly right now. The app is really nice, and loaded in around 2sec on my iPhone 5. When I signed up it was a new connection and I got to choose a custom number for around $5. I'm a proofreader so I chose something that had the word PROOF in it. That was the only hitch in the process - they gave me a totally different number when they issued my sim and it took some time on the phone to support to get it fixed. Coverage is great. Very happy with my plan.

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deadlyllama

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#1535474 19-Apr-2016 11:40

I've been a happy 2Degrees customer since 2009 - switched from Vodafone prepay the day 2D brought out its first data pack (50MB?). Lived in Wellington for most of that time, now in Whanganui.

Reception is fine most of the time. All networks have black spots. I've never had to manually switch networks to Vodafone to make things work.

I'm also happy to be a 2D customer because of the disruption they've brought to the cellular service market in NZ. If they hadn't shown up, I imagine we'd be spending much more to use our cellphones much less. I'm happy to tolerate a few rough edges to support them.