Now that I finally managed to crack the net lock on my iPhone, allowing me to use it with any SIM card, I am starting to look at data plans here in New Zealand. .
The iPhone really is deprived of most of its functionality if there is no access to non-wifi data, i.e. 3G. It was pretty straightforward in South Africa, where I had a pay-as-you-go card and just converted some of my minutes to data as needed.
Returning to New Zealand I spent an hour perusing the confusing range of plans on the Vodaphone website - YouChoose, Base, Starter, iPhone - until I thought I knew what I wanted. 200MB for $40 seemed ok, and there was no minimum contract, which was important since I am leaving in January. So I call them and change the plan, all well and good. It's when I call tech support to get the access details to allow the phone onto the 3G network that I find out that iPhone data is not the same as normal data. Apparently I can't just use the normal data plan, I need an iPhone specific one. Whatever. But this one has a 24 months minimum running time, so I would have to pay to get out of it. So basically if you have a phone that can really use the data you pay for, you need to commit yourself for two years.
I declined that offer, stuck with my vanilla data plan and so far I have had normal operations. So much for those sales tactics.
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