mobile duplicity

NZers are 108% saturated. Its not that we're wet, its that we are a canny bunch (apparently).

NZ Herald Thursday April 16, 2009

If you lined up 100 New Zealanders, then emptied their pockets and purses, you'd retrieve 108 mobile phones. The fact that there are more active cellphones than people in this country is not a sign that we're a nation obsessed with mobile communication technology.

For those who have more phones than cents its the answer to high calling costs which cross across service providers. The fees competing telcos charge each other for passing on calls made to the other's network currently stands at 15c per minute.

The answer (apparently) is its cheaper to have two phones on two service providers, use one for calls to telecom users and the other for calls to vodafone users.

In response to threats of Government interventions, Telecom and Vodafone have proposed reducing termination rates gradually between now and 2014 to 10c and 11c respectively. The Commerce Commission preliminary view is that the proposed cuts do not go far enough.

The Telecommunications Users Association (Tuanz) agreed, saying someone making 10 minutes of calls to mobiles a day was currently paying $300 a year in excess charges, and would pay a total of $1300 in excess charges by the time the rates fell to the proposed 2014 levels.

Obviously, the answer is get another phone...its cheaper...and of course its a win win situation, making cell phones even more pervasive is their business afterall.