i have made my own little comparison table. i think its pretty good and makes things clear. i have only included txt, voice and data rates. the 3 most important things to me. i have left out all the obvious thing like txt ‘add-on’s’ run out at the end of the month if you have used them or not etc… i just dont know how to upload it. i have it in jpg, pdf and xlsx.

(Dejh0n has made 1 comment)

Thanks Steve. Actually it's not all that dedicated, it's my 4wd campervan – my broadband is Telecom, my power company is that solar panel on the roof. I've been impressed with the amount of spots I've been ablet to get XT 3g coverage… Way off road, not bad.

Nice site, thanks for the news and tips.

(dangermouse has made 7 comments)

@dangermouse – we at iPhonewzealand are honoured that you would be visiting our site whilst in your car, parked next to a river in the middle of nowhere. That's dedication!

(Steve has made 320 comments)

I was aware you could get 500Mb but not that you could get higher. The table is already a little cramped as it is so probably this is best achieved in a footnote I am a little occupied right now but thanks for that!

(ahmad has made 73 comments)

Ahmad, probably a little known secret on XT… you can sign up for the bigger 0.5GB, 1GB, 2GB, and 3GB data plans on prepay as well – you may want to update the chart to be definitive. I’m posting this from my iPhone tethered laptop parked next to a river in the middle of nowhere on the 2GB plan ($52.50/month).

(dangermouse has made 7 comments)

User asked: “ahmad – on your table / chart you created, it says you can get 600 txts for $9.60. Does that mean the 600 texts expire at the end of the month, or last until you have sent 600 texts total?”

The TXT600 add-on applies for a calendar month (on prepay) or billing cycle month (on account).

Unused TXTs do not carry over to the following month so you “use them or lose them” and then pay another $12 ($9.60 after topup bonus discount) the following month.

(ahmad has made 73 comments)

Thanks for the feedback. Tohe the chart should already be fully up to date now with that other pricing? Try a refresh.

(ahmad has made 73 comments)

Great chart Ahmed. You may wish to update it now that Voicemail pricing etc has been announced. Cheers

(tohe has made 1 comment)

Yeah sorry, it's a bad table and I've been looking at too many today! Fixed and admin will update.

(ahmad has made 73 comments)

nigel – this is simply a way of averaging out that free TXT allocation to allow a fair comparison for calls and TXTs against the other networks. Instead of saying "free txts, calls for 44c", it averages out the free usage across however the $20 is used.

Remember this is simply for the purpose of comparison of the "real cost" of each component across networks.

(ahmad has made 73 comments)

I think it's fair to include the free text allocation in the "per text" pricing, but probably not in the calls/data pricing.

My suggestion, pick a "expected number of texts per month" figure and then use that for the "per text" calculation. Perhaps 200 / month?

(nigel.ramsay has made 3 comments)

Very handy comparison Ahmad, nice one

(scrambler has made 1 comment)

You need to look at that link again – it’s 50cents for Overseas PXT – PXT cost 20c in New Zealand.

(Johnny11 has made 14 comments)

If that is correct then Vodafone’s site is incorrect. Those charges were taken from:

http://www.vodafone.co.nz/services/txt-and-pxt/pxt.jsp

Which still shows 50c for PXTs “To a Vodafone NZ mobile” or “To another NZ network”.

(ahmad has made 73 comments)

PXT are showing as 50 cents for Vodafone

PXT for Vodafone to Vodafone and to Email are 20 cents. Please correct your chart.

(Johnny11 has made 14 comments)

Hi Nigel, here are the maths, and I would appreciate feedback if they use incorrect assumptions.

SMS costs 9c, but you receive $9 worth of SMS with a $20 topup.

Presuming that a heavy “Magic” user is always using up their free TXT allocation, then they effectively get $29 worth of usage out of every $20 topup.

Which means that they are getting a 31% discount overall.

I chose to “average out” the 100 free TXTs in the interests of easier comparison. Basically it averages out that free allocation across all usage, which is how the 30c/15c “effective calling rate” comes about”.

But it does really rely on a heavy user using up all their SMS and topping up at least every 30 days.

(ahmad has made 73 comments)

Can you explain the maths behind some of the 2 Degrees Magic numbers? Specifically the 30c/15c calling rates and the 35c/MB data rates.

Cheers, Nigel

(nigel.ramsay has made 3 comments)