Pssst... Mauricio...
Well I tell you, you’ve got to be eagle-eyed and just a little bit of a nosy sod to get anywhere in this game. Which is exactly why my interest was piqued when I read the following twitter-conversation between Geekzone owner Mauricio Freitas and 2degrees Mobile…
Here’s a transcript of the brief-but-revealing conversation (click the links for the actual tweets):
2degrees (Tweet Deleted): Hey Mauricio – how many more Telecom XT network outages will it take you to finally switch over to 2degrees? 
Bryony
Mauricio: the data! 3GB would be too expensive
Mauricio: I use more mobile data than voice
2degrees: ah well…..we’ll have the answer to that soon…
Now, I could be reading too much into this, and the response from 2degrees could just be the work of a PR person trying to dodge a bullet they should have seen coming, but really why would a company that is currently only offering pre-paid voice services coupled with pretty extortionate data rates be pitching in public to arguably the country’s most well-known smartphone aficionado and therefore the country’s least-likely customer under their current pricing regime? You gotta wonder… Stay tuned!
I use 2degrees for all my mobile calls on a separate mobile, but use the Vodafone BBLite (100 mb for $10) for my mobile data on my iPhone, which is enough for receiving push notifications, casual light gaming and light internet and FaceBook browsing. If I run out of data I can top up another 100 mb for $10, or if I have less than 10 days left till the end of the current cycle then I'd just go by the daily rate of $1 for 10 mb.
I can see Vodafone providing more generous packages in the near future, hopefully in the first half of 2010, but that's just hoping!… As for 2Degrees, I reckon they have very reasonable pricing on calls and text messages, but PXT and mobile data prices are simply insane, unless you don't care about PXT and all you need mobile data for is Push noifications.. but in that case the $10 BBlite add on from Vodafone is much more generous still.
I do have good expectations from 2Degrees once they go 3G and once they pick up speed and have a larger, more supportive, fan/customer-base, but if everybody chose to have nothing to do with 2degrees then where will it will have to come up with a machine that makes money out of thin air in order to be able to afford to compete and meet high expectations and impress.
I will continue doing my part by making my calls from 2Degrees until one day I see the change.
(Yaman_NZ has made 184 comments)