A cellphone pricing war is about to erupt in New Zealand as Telecom and Vodafone will finally have a new competitor from tomorrow.TelstraClear will launch their own mobile network to the public tomorrow, with what they are describing as a "staggeringly cheap" alternative to the two current providers.
The deal will be announced in television advertisements tonight, but is said to include a free Nokia handset worth nearly $500 with 500 free texts to both rival networks and a flat 29c per minute national calling, with a monthly access fee of $20.
However the main catch with this deal is that customers will need to be signed up to one of TelstraClear's homeline and broadband plans in order to be eligible. This could pose a problem to customers wanting to change their mobile provider, as many ISP's have now locked their customers into contracts of at least 12 months.
The Commerce Comission announced earlier this year that both Telecom and Vodafone's prices were too expensive by international standards. The introduction of TelstraClear into the market is expected to force them to lower their prices, which at the end of the day will see every consumer come out as the winner.
2 comments:
Just saw the advert on 3 News. The new plan is no competition to the current offerings of Telecom and Vodafone. The biggest turnoff is that you have to use TelstraClear for phone, tolls and broadband. Any savings you make in the new mobile offer (which for me is no savings at all) would be lost in the pricing of the phone and broadband services. Bad move Telstraclear.
Yeah, I am disappointed that this is their only plan. I expected that they would have several options, but making the cheapest one require you to have homeline and broadband with them.
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