Today I did something I had not expected to do until quite recently. I took my mobile business back to Telecom NZ. Vodafone are history after over 10 years.

So, what happened?

Well all those years ago, my first mobile phone was a Telecom TDMA phone. I am fairly sure that at the time, they were the only game in town. It was a largish phone with a day or so of battery life and it did calling and I think SMS. Oh, and there was probably a clock on there somewhere. It cost a small mint to run, but my wife and I had one each, to be used only when needed as we had two new children in the family.

Some years into this arrangement, Telecom pissed me off with their attitude and policy regarding top-ups. After arguing with them over the issue, I was speaking to a friend who had signed up with the then-quite-new BellSouth. Digital phones that lasted a week on a single charge were quite the incentive and I switched soon after.

Later BellSouth became Vodafone and got even cooler. I’d get a call every six months where a rep would discuss my call volumes (bugger all) and help me work out whether I was on the best plan for me. More years down the track, their web site let me manage mulitple phones. One on account and one on prepaid, all from the convenience of a single web page. When I travelled overseas they were all helpful with exact pricing from the various carriers and lots of advice on how to minimise those roaming charges. Vodafone were cool. Telecom sucked. Even after finally upgrading from their ancient analogue TDMA network (only closed down in 2008!) they went with the wrong horse with CDMA. Vodafone was definitely the place to be.

Then they got bigger and bigger and started learning Telecom’s tricks. They began to suck. Their web site gradually lost functionality with every ‘upgrade’ and their staff were blissfully unaware of what could previously be done, or would insist that it wasn’t broken. Endless loops could be entered trying to get it sorted. Then came the iPhone. I lined up on launch night. On that night, the cheapest “iPhone plan” was to rich for me, so I stuck to my existing plan and added data as an extra. It turned out within a few months to be the most expensive data plan available. Even casual prepaid data was better value. And the price for breaking out of this plan made any potential savings disappear quickly.

Then came the death blow. After talking to Vodafone about my options, I tried to avail myself of them, only to be told I couldn’t. So I complained. I got myself a $200 credit, which is not to be sneezed at. But I did wonder, then and since, at the slickness of the complaints process. This whole saga left a sour taste in my mouth and the seed was sown.

Then one of my sons, completely misinterpreting some advertising, suggested I could save my hard earned dollars by getting him a Telecom XT phone. You see, in my loyalty to Vodafone, I had put the whole family on their network. His other complaint was that his mates wouldn’t TXT him because he was on Vodafone and they on Telecom (CDMA). Much as I thought that shouldn’t be my problem, he did have a valid concern (well, as a teenager, anyway). And so I began seriously looking at XT as an alternative carrier.

Two things swayed me to take the plunge. First, was the option of open term contracts. Vodafone had basically screwed me through this mechanism, so I wasn’t keen to sign up again to 12 or 24 months of hell in such a fast-paced market. Second was the ability to add cheap TXT bundles that did not restrict which network you could send them to. In the end I went with prepaid myself instead of going on account again. Sure there are some things only account holders can do, but realistically I use my iPhone for TXTing and data and both of those things work well, and are reasonably priced, on XT prepaid.

In fact, the data works way better than Vodafone. I had read the overwhelming evidence that Telecom’s XT network was superior for iPhones, then tonight, while waiting in the fish and chip shop, I experienced it for myself. It is visibly and obviously faster. Not only that, but ALL of Telecom’s XT network coverageb(97% of the places New Zealanders live and work) is 3G on frequencies the iPhone can handle. On Vodafone’s network, only their ‘prime’ coverage areas (typically cities) are the full 3G on an iPhone frequency and much of their infill area is GPRS only – something my iPhone was constantly reminding me, including most days at my desk at work.

So, the plunge has been taken. Time will tell whether network reliability or the infamous Telecom ‘customer service’ will sully the experience. But they have their chance.

However, on a related note, you still couldn’t get me to even entertain the merest idea of using Xtra as an ISP. I’ve never, ever used them and intend, at this stage, never ever to in the future. Consider that never having been a customer they have still managed to bill me for services I don’t use and called me a liar. I wasn’t keen on them before those episodes, so it will take a lot of convincing to get me to talk to Telecom about broadband.