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Pre-pay mobile phone SIM for New Zealand

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I am going to NZ later this year, will be spending about 5 weeks there. I want to buy a local SIM. Much of my time I will spend in rather remote areas, so coverage is more important than price. What SIM should I get?
12 years ago, March 24th 2011 No: 1 Msg: #131915  
I am going to NZ later this year, will be spending about 5 weeks there. I want to buy a local SIM. Much of my time I will spend in rather remote areas, so coverage is more important than price. What SIM should I get?
Reply to this

12 years ago, March 25th 2011 No: 2 Msg: #131965  
Telecom tends to have slightly more coverage, but many people go with 2 Degrees as it is much cheaper and the coverage is usually good enough. Many of the remote areas wont have any coverage. We recently toured the South Island, one of us had a telecom phone the other vodafone, and generally they either both worked or neither of them did. Reply to this

12 years ago, March 25th 2011 No: 3 Msg: #132006  
We went with Vodafone which was cheap and had a signal practically everywhere we went. Do ask about tariffs though - if I remember correctly the default pay as you go tariff was expensive. We changed tariff online to a more traveller-friendly one - cheaper rates etc. Reply to this

12 years ago, March 26th 2011 No: 4 Msg: #132095  
Thanks a lot! I'll check rates and options online. Reply to this

12 years ago, March 30th 2011 No: 5 Msg: #132341  
Hey i am going travelling to australia pretty soon and am wondering about the same thing there? What is mobile phone coverage like in outback australia parts?

Is there a better phone company to go with? Reply to this

12 years ago, March 30th 2011 No: 6 Msg: #132363  
Vodafone were garbage in Oz! Reception was poor in remote areas. Reply to this

12 years ago, April 8th 2011 No: 7 Msg: #133292  
We went with Telstra in Australia, not the cheapest but we were told by a few people that their coverage was good. We got a pre paid SIM for AUS$30 and it came with $20-30 credit, cant remember now exactly how much. We used it in Western Australia, and while there were places with no coverage, we didnt really have any complaints. We dont get coverage here in remote areas (NZ) and didnt expect it there either. Reply to this

10 years ago, February 15th 2014 No: 8 Msg: #179316  
Mobile coverage in Australia.
These posts are three years old, so an update is appropriate.
We circumnavigated Australia in our motorhome and used Telstra $30.00 prepaid option in our Galaxy Ace Plus phones. (2013)
Telstra supply a number of phones with more powerful antenna which assists. Telstra also have an excellent phone with provision for an external aerial, and this gives better coverage.
In the major cities, you can choose your phone company and most will do ok, but in the outback towns, Telstra has much more coverage.
However, there are hundreds of kilometres between centres in some parts of WA and Qld where there is no coverage.
For those wishing to cross deserts and remote parts of Central Australia, the only working phones will be satellite phones. Though expensive to own and use, I ask at what price is your safety in an emergency?
Mobile internet basically follows the same comments. We did find in some remote towns that we had phone reception but no internet connection. Reply to this

9 years ago, March 28th 2014 No: 9 Msg: #180236  
We use Telstra as our internet and home phone provider in Australia but for our mobile phones we use Amaysim.

They use the Optus network which does not have the same rural coverage as Telstra but for 99% of the time is good enough for most people.

Optus/Telstra calls are 50 cents (or more) per min plus 50 cents connection charge.

Amaysim calls are 12 cents per min with no other charges. Reply to this

6 years ago, March 18th 2018 No: 10 Msg: #204312  
There's very little difference between the coverage of any of the networks in New Zealand - I think they all use exactly the same telecommunications masts. Probably the cheapest provider for pay-as-you-go is Warehouse Mobile; without a special package, it's 2 cents per text, 4 cents per minute for a chat and 6 cents per Mb for data. Reply to this

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