Dave Gee: Life from Right Field

As launch date for Telecom's new 3G network approaches in New Zealand, major rival Vodafone is finally sharpening up its mobile broadband offerings. Telecom's "T-Day" launch is set down for early June, although there are rumours the company is considering bringing that launch date forward.

Vodafone says its 3G network currently covers 70% of the population... although the actual geographical 3G coverage is quite woeful, particularly in the South Island and central North Island.

The company had been planning a long term programme of 3G expansion (as in by mid-2010), but fast-tracked this following Telecom's T-Day announcement.

Vodafone says its 3G mobile broadband coverage will be extended to "97% of places New Zealanders live, work, and play" by the end of May. (They better get a move on, as that's just 5 weeks away!)

Telecom's network promises to cover a similar 97% figure... Of course, with both companies that doesn't actually translate to 97% of the country, and rural users will still find themselves with super-slow connections (if anything at all).

The company's newest mobile broadband deal is the 'Broadband Surfer' package, which offers a solid 512MB of data for $40/month.

Vodafone's recently released 'Broadband Lite' package offers 100MB for $10/month, or a casual rate of $1 a day for up to 10MB. Currently the new packages are only available to Prepay users (go figure?), but will apparently be available to On Account customers in a few weeks time.

Telecom is hoping its 3G launch will help it attract a larger share of the more profitable business customers and heavy users market.

NBR reports that Telecom currently has a 47% share of the mobile phone market in New Zealand, but only 35% of the revenue (thanks to the huge number of teens using cheapo deals like $10 text).

* NBR - Vodafone’s stream of pre-T Day deals continues