Topic: Travel to NZ/ any suggestions on prepaid phone

Hi NZ forum,

I'm new here, so please no flames if this has been discussed elsewhere; I simply could not find it.

We're going to go on vacation in beautiful NZ in November and I would like to a) get a prepaid cellphone card to be reachable and make local calls and b) ideally have Internet from on the road.

Can someone shed some light on the general GSM/GPRS/UMTS coverage? Are there prepaid SIM Cards available? Which provider has the best coverage? Do they offer prepaid data? If so, at which price?

Do you need a local address?

Would love to get some feedback!

Thanks

Christian

Hi Christian,

Both Telecom NZ and Vodafone operate Prepay mobiles. Pretty sure 2degrees does too, but they're not exactly pitching at data users/businesses so I would be unsure as to their appropriateness.

Both Voda and Telecom say that their GSM coverage extends to 97% of the places that New Zealanders live and work (with Voda throwing in 'and play'), but that's based on Population Density rather than Geographical Area.

Where do you intend to travel? Into the deep bush, or will you be sticking to the more well-travelled areas?

*edit* We don't flame people here... well, except in the Nasty Board. Better to keep it all in one place than have people being abused.

Hi kall,

thanks for your quick reply. We will be doing quite some driving around (without a big itinerary though), so I guess where the New Zealanders live, work, and play should cover us and already pay off the investment :-) Plus, its mostly for emergencies, roadside assistance (we rented cheap), and (if they have data service) the occasional access to email. I'll check out their respective websites now. There are a lot of services out there aimed at tourists, but those are usually over-priced and under-featured.

Christian

I can only personally vouch for Telecom's new XT network, and I happen to work for them, but it is pretty good.