Frosty Reception
Back when we launched, we spoke to 2degrees about their plans for the iPhone. They told us that they would let Vodafone and Telecom battle for that market, but that iPhone owners would still be welcome. Well, that welcome has turned to somewhat of a frosty reception this morning with the company’s pricing announcement.
While calling are text rates seem extremely competitive (22c per min to landlines, 44c per min to mobiles, both anytime) and hopefully game-changing, data has been priced at a lofty 50c per MB with no bulk bundles available. The company has also chosen to offer only pre-pay solutions (presumably to minimise operational costs), meaning that iPhone users will be severely stung for choosing 2degrees – a $20 top-up would give users just 40MB to play with, versus 240MB for $18 on XT or 200MB for $20 on Vodafone.
Furthermore, data is provided via EDGE – a data protocol that sits somewhere between GPRS and 3G in terms of speed. There is no 3G service available.
It is unclear at this stage whether or when better data deals will become available, but with the deepest regret we can only advise iPhone users to connect to 2degrees with extreme caution at this stage. Only those users who make mostly calls or send texts and very rarely use data should go ahead.
We will be posting a carrier bundle for 2degrees on the site later today
I’m like Neil. I have an original iPhone (Edge only anyway) and will probably switch to 2 degrees until I make the big move to iPhone 3GS (and then probably on XT).
Now that 2 degrees is out, It would be great to see a prepay price comparison ala the spreadsheet at http://tr.im/tfOv if anyone is doing rigorous checking. Hint hint.
(mcginniwa has made 2 comments)
mcginniwa one step ahead of you
http://www.iphonewzealand.co.nz/2009/all/prepay-comparison-table/
(ahmad has made 101 comments)
And don’t forget – Edge ought to be five times faster than the alternative for us original iPhone people.
I’ll be interested to see what happens when my free sim turns up.
(seldomseenkid has made 1 comment)
I expect they are holding off on investing in competitive data network until they see if their business has legs.
If they see strong uptake in their original customer focus (txting prepay crowd) and get some money in the bank, I think we’ll see reinvestment.
(mcginniwa has made 2 comments)
Although the 2D data prices are high per MB, for someone who is on PrePay and uses just a little data they are better for me.
Currently on VF paying $10/month prepay for 100MB data and only using about 7MB/month. Can't use the casual $1/day because it could end up costing up to $31/month. Data usage is just from the odd email check, twitter check or maps lookup when out and about so only amounts to a few KB per session.
On 2D, I'd only pay $3.50 for 7MB.
(neilinnz has made 14 comments)
That's excellent, Neil — hence why I only advised 'caution' and not an all-out recommendation to avoid. People need to weigh up the likely costs for their own usage patterns and while I expect many iPhone users will find 2degrees prohibitive, your experience goes to show that this isn't the case for everybody.
Yep. Slightly disappointed that the prices aren't a complete game changer but I expect that 2degrees will be developing better prices over time. I'll definitely use my sim card from them in my old mobile as a backup for visiting family and for myself if I'm going somewhere and don't want to take my iPhone.
Hopefully sometime over the next year 2degrees will come out with some competitive data plans, I'll be more than willing to swap when the time comes.
(moviemichael has made 59 comments)