Vodafone's wireless plan rated cheapest in NZ

The Commerce Commission has ranked a new Vodafone plan as the cheapest New Zealand fixed calling plan, even though it does not use a fixed line.


TelstraClear provides the cheapest plan that actually uses a fixed line.

In its June quarter telecommunications monitoring report, the commission said Vodafone's new fixed wireless home phone plus local plan used the company's cellular wireless network.

It might not provide the same voice quality as a fixed line service and could not be used for dial-up internet or broadband, the commission said.

Despite that, the commission considered the plan to be a reasonable substitute for a fixed line voice service in areas with good Vodafone mobile network coverage.

The commission benchmarks New Zealand services against OECD rankings, which calculate the cheapest plans in each country for low, medium and high user groups.

It found the new Vodafone plan ranked seventh out of the 30 countries in the low user basket, at 80 percent of the average OECD cost.

The cheapest plan that actually used a fixed line was the TelstraClear inhome cable plan, with a rank of 17 and cost of 101 percent of the average.

For the medium user basket, the Vodafone plan was ranked ninth at 85 percent of the average cost, while the TelstraClear plan was 22nd and cost 104 percent.

For the high user basket, the Vodafone plan was ninth at 83 percent of the average cost, with the TelstraClear plan at 12th and 93 percent of the average cost.

The mobile plans benchmarked had not changed in price in New Zealand dollar terms during the past 15 months and continued to rank in the bottom quartile of the 30 OECD countries surveyed, the commission said.