Vodafone slashes Aussie roaming rate: how it stands against rivals

UPDATE May 20: Vodafone said this morning that it had cut its transtasman data roaming rate to $1/MB, effective immediately. 

Spokesman Matt East said unlike last year's $2/MB promotion, the new deal was permanent. "There's no fine print."

New Zealand Computer Society boss Paul Matthews said he was unimpressed by any of the recent cuts from the major carriers.

“The current level of roaming charges make it very difficult for business conducted between the two countries, not to mention catching many other travellers unawares,” the NZCS chief executive said.

2degrees slashes Aussie roaming rate: how it stands against rivals

May 13: 2degrees has cuts its data roaming costs from a surreally expensive $30 a megabyte - the highest on the market - to $2.50 a megabyte, or $1/MB on pre-pay.

Here's how things stand now:

ROAMING TO AUSTRALIA
Telecom: $1/MB first 100MB* (NBR rating: extremely expensive) | Call NZ: 75 cents/min | Receive call: 80 cents/min
2degrees: $1/MB pre-pay; $2.50/MB casual (NBR: rating: nosebleed expensive) | Calli NZ: 44 cents/min
Vodafone: $5/MB (NBR rating: heart-stoppingly expensive) | Call NZ: $2/min ($1 on prepay/Traveller plans) | Receive call: $1/min ($0.80 on prepay/Traveller)

* Data beyond 100MB is charged at the eye-poppingly expensive rate of $8 per megabyte

2degrees has also dropped its transtasman calling from 89 cents to 44c a minute for pre-pay and post-pay customers, the same rate as a standard national 2degrees prepay call. The charge for a txt message was cut from 80 cents to 79 cents (Telecom and Vodafone both charge 80 cents to send a txt).

All three carriers have now made significant cuts to their transtasman rates, motivated by a combined Australia-New Zealand government investigation into prices, launched May 1 by NZ Communications Minister Steven Joyce and his opposite number in Canberra, Senator Stephen Conroy. 2degrees said it was able to negotiate a better rate, and immediately passed on cuts.

A 2degrees spokesman denied any link with the investigation, and threatened regulation. Rather, the company's gowing customer numbers (it recently claimed 580,000 active connections) had given it more negotiating clout.

$1/MB if you buy chunks of data in advance
The telco has also extended its $2.50/MB casual roaming rate to the US and UK, and introduced a series of pre-paid plans that take pricing as low as $1/MB. Data is offered in pre-paid blocks at $20 for 10MB, $75 for 50MB, $100 for 100MB.

$30,000 better than $2500 but still far cry from $20
Despite the reductions, the cost of data roaming in Australia remains stupendously expensive. $2.50 per megabyte equates to $2500 per gigabyte (GB). Domestically, 2degrees offers 1GB (that is, 1000MB) of mobile data for $20.

The equivalent to an $800 coffee
Telecommunciations Users Association boss Paul Brislen (who recently racked up an $1800 phone bill for a few days average phone use in Sydney) said his organisation supported any price drops, and that the 2degrees price points are much better, especially voice and txt.

"But all the telcos need to realise that when they're charging around 200 times the local rate, it's still unacceptable to customers," said Mr Brislen.

"Imagine if it was coffee - $4 for a latte in Auckland but $800 in Sydney."

"There is no reason why the rates should be that high," said Mr Brislen - a former Vodafone manager -  "and I don't think this will be enough to stave off any MED investigation."

Tuanz will continue to recommend customers don't use their mobile devices for data when travelling overseas, Mr Brislen said.

2degrees disputed Mr Brislen's account, pointing out that its casual domestic roaming rate is a (what NBR would call very robust) 0.50/MB - meaning the Aussie data roaming rate is only twice as high, assuming a customer buys a pre-pay bundle.

However, NBR thinks most domestic 2degrees customers would plump for the carrier's much more keenly priced pre-pay deals, which run from $20/1GB (1000MB) to $12.50/3GB (3000MB).

The latter is $4.17 a gigabyte - compared to $1000GB at the bundle Aussie rate (that is, 240 times more expensive) or $2500 on the casual Aussie rate (600 times more expensive).