Vodafone NZ halves data roaming charge for Australia bound Kiwis

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 23 September 2010 12:11

Your IT - Mobility

Vodafone NZ has halved to $NZ5 ($A3.83) per megabyte the price it charges its mobile customers for data when roamed to Australia.

The new rate puts the company well ahead of Telecom NZ which presently charges $NZ8, and streets ahead of new entrant 2degrees - much lauded for bringing fresh competition to the NZ market. It charges a whopping $NZ30. It even admits that this is "a bit pricey" but offers no explanation.

Vodafone NZ will also introduce, in October an upgraded notification service for roamers, messaging them as their 2MB, 5MB and 10MB usage thresholds are passed.

The rates are also well ahead of those for Australians travelling to NZ. None of the Australian telcos offer any country specific rates, although Optus offers 20 percent discount in countries where a carrier is a member of Bridge Alliance.

Optus casual rates are $20.48 per MB ($NZ26.73). Telstra charges $15 ($NZ19.58), plus a 15 cent flagfall for each session initiated by the customer (we were unable to find any explanation as to what exactly constitutes a session).

Vodafone Australia charges $10 per MB but also has an offer that seems to be well ahead of anything else available: customers can buy data bundles by the month for $49, $199 or $329 with include data at prices from $1.96 per MB to $1.65 depending on the bundle.

When the cap is reached, rather than charging an excessive rate for above quota data, as is the case on many 'capped' offering, Vodafone actually discounts the casual $10 per MB rate by 20 percent.

The high cost of international roaming, especially for data, has been a sore point with users and regulators for years. There have been bilateral discussions between the Australian and New Zealand Governments,  but these have achieved little.

In June The Asia Pacific Telecommunity - a body representing almost every government telecoms department in the region - attempted to tackle the problem with a three day workshop in Brisbane.