Roaming - News, Features, and Slideshows

News

  • 2Degrees launches new roaming plans

    From today, all 2degrees’ Pay Monthly and Business customers can use their mobiles across the Tasman with its new 10/10/10 plan – where customers pay 10 cents per minute for calls within Australia and to New Zealand, 10 cents per text and 10 cents per MB of data.

  • Vodafone launches fixed rate roaming service

    Vodafone has launched a new roaming service by which Kiwis travelling to 17 destination countries will be able to text, call and use data on their local plan rates for a fixed daily rate of $5.

  • Telecom switches off roaming for non-XT customers

    Telecom mobile customers who have yet to make the switch to XT are unable to make or receive calls and texts from today when travelling in Australia and other countries that do not have CDMA networks.
    The company last night turned off its ''WorldMode'' service, which let owners of some more expensive CDMA mobiles roam overseas on networks based on alternative mobile technology GSM, using a Sim card.
    The dual-mode phones were introduced in 2006 as a stop-gap measure ahead of the launch of Telecom's XT mobile network in June last year.
    Telecom spokeswoman Emma-Kate Greer said all but 3 percent of customers who used their mobile overseas had switched to XT.
    Telecom had phoned and sent postcards to WorldMode customers to ensure they were not caught unawares, she said.
    ''In the past week, we have sent reminder messages to all customers currently roaming with the contact details for our roaming helpdesk for them to contact us. A further text message was sent [on Tuesday] to all roaming customers again to remind them of the cut off date.''
    Telecom will axe its 3G CDMA mobile broadband service at the end of next month, meaning non-XT customers will notice a speed drop when using Telecom phones and datasticks to access the internet or download emails.
    It plans to close its CDMA network completely in 2012.
    2degrees chief executive Eric Hertz has forecast the changes will create an opportunity for rival network operators to pick up customers, given that not all remaining CDMA customers may switch to XT.

  • Vodafone to cut global roaming rates

    Vodafone is cutting mobile roaming prices around the world by two thirds, from $30/MB in some places to a standard $10/MB on any network, anywhere in the world.
    Customers roaming in Vodafone's destinations now has just one price to pay — $10/MB — regardless of which network they connect to.
    Vodafone is extending the offer even further for New Zealand’s most popular roaming destination, Australia.

  • Joyce urges telcos to sign 111 code

    Communications and IT minister Steven Joyce has called on telcos to sign a code governing 111 calls "as a matter of urgency", following outages on the system last month.

  • Forum: Were fears of a weak regulator unfounded?

    For the past few months, the ICT industry has been keeping close tabs on changes at the Commerce Commission, searching for signs of any change in direction in the telecomms regulation regime.

  • Toybox: Roaming around Europe

    When I went on a trip to Europe recently, I tested Telecom’s global roaming service and the BlackBerry look-a-like Samsung Global (i325).

  • Asian carriers to offer flat-rate data roaming

    Some of Asia's biggest cellular carriers are banding together to offer a flat-rate data roaming service, hoping to increase the use of cellular data services by business people travelling in Asia.

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