New Zealand iPhone: Vodafone versus Telecom
There’s nothing I like more than a good fight. We have ourselves a bit of a duopoly doozy at the moment, with Telecom laying the iPhone smackdown. This morning, Telecom said “give us your poor, your tired, your huddled iPhone-carrying masses, and we’ll give you six hundred bucks”.
I can help but wonder if Vodafone saw this coming a few weeks ago when they announced a big freebie for iPhone owners out of the pure kindness of their hearts. The way Vodafone has been trumping Telecom lately, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a mole at the heart of the big T.
Of course this leaves you, the lowly consumer, scratching your head about which plan to choose. Thankfully a couple of enterprising local twatterers have got their geek on and compiled a spreadsheet.
I don’t pretend to understand a word of it, but I think it’s saying that Vodafone’s plans are still better value (especially if you add in the 3GB free data). Oops, no, after some confusion around TXT bundles, looks like XT is cheaper. The unfortunate truth remains that the iPhone will do better at a pure network transport level on Telecom’s XT network than Vodafone’s.
Ultimately, neither option saves a ton of cash, but I’m hoping that the outcome will be a permanent upgrade in data capacity or freebies. It’s just nuts that 3G data is a “premium” service in New Zealand at the moment.
Popularity: 14% [?]
Look again. VF don’t allow TXT2000 on iPhone plans, my bad. Means Vodafone plans for iPhone suck! Especially if you TXT.
(This may change as the carriers respond or we find more information.)
We need to all move to a country where there is some decent competition in the mobile market. Both Telecom and Vodafone are too greedy-guts to realise that more people would sign up to their plans if they were more affordable.
Or maybe we need to push the government to regulate? I’m usually for a free market, but this ain’t one. This duopoly is hurting NZers. Hopefully 2? will make a difference.
I’ve done the sums personally and by moving my iPhone to XT and getting a similar call/txt/data bundle to what I have now with Vodafone, I can save myself $120 a year. I completely agree with everything you’ve said.
Vodafone have become the new Telecom ie greedy, callous, don’t care about their customers. I am looking for a new provider for my iPhone simply because Vodafone ate my $174 prepay credit despite me topping up the day before expiry (turns out it didn’t activate, but they don’t care). Imagine if a bank took your money on the basis of you not having made a deposit for 12 months, just withdrawls? Why do Telco’s get away with it?