Thursday, August 21, 2008

Vodafone offers 'cheaper' iPhone data plans

After significantly reducing the trust of its customers, Vodafone has offered new data plans for the iPhone in NZ.

The Good

- Customers who bought iPhones under old plans can change 

The Bad

- It's a small incremental change at the margin - monthly fee reductions with corresponding voice minutes and txt quota reductions.
- Customers remain disappointed from the early promise and there is no apology for that disappointment. Possible that Vodafone think they have got away with this. Especially since plan changes can incur a penalty.
- There is no high end plan that offers good value. In fact no high-end plan at all above 1GB.

My thoughts
- My pick is that Apple have forced this change - this is only incremental and comments on stuff and Geekzone seem to represent the tone.
- Vodafone NZ is in the dogbox with Apple - supply is being drip-fed to them (confirmed from two separate sources)
- It is going to require a lot more changes along these lines to regain customer trust for Vodafone. Expect to see more incremental changes.
- An opportunity still exists for Telecom to shake up the mobile data market and take some seriously high ground.

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