Problems Remain in International Roaming

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Posted Wed 25 April 2007 @ 11:48 a.m. by Ernie Newman

Yes, it's often frustrating and it can be bloody expensive! TUANZ Board member Pat O'Connell, aka CIO at Carter Holt Harvey, features in this article from today's Herald berating the woes of international roaming.

And it doesn't matter what network you are on. Here in Manila my Vodafone I-mate is almost useless - it won't make an outbound call, drops 90% (literally) of inbound calls, and won't mate with any data network. All it's good for is SMS which works perfectly. Beats me.

The technology still has growing pains and perhaps we can excuse that. But what is inexcusable is roaming prices. Were I lucky enough to be able to make voice calls to and from NZ on my Vodafone account, a call to NZ would cost me $4.95-$5.60 a minute compared to $1.23 to receive a call from home.

I don't get it. Somebody is making obscene amounts of money. The battle against excessive roaming charges, fought for a decade by INTUG of which TUANZ is an active member, has to be stepped up.

Categories: Innovation | TUANZ policy | Wireless carriers

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  • Pat says:

    And its biting me again right now.....I'm in my home away from home, Memphis, and my Telecom phone/pda is great for voice, but as expensive as all get out, but will not do data at all - even though technically it can - its the same technology as the voice. The reason it won't is purely commercial...CDMA data works in Australia (at least for now, and also after a long wait, but will die soon when telstra turns off CDMA). Telecom offers a World Phone for voice roaming which will switch (with some effort, I think) between the two primary technologies, but it knows nothing of data. I give up...back to landline and fax....it works and is all I can afford!

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