1 post tagged “vodafone”
Bah, in the face of imminent competition in the GSM market Vodafone (currently the only GSM carrier in NZ) has today announced they will begin to lock handsets from May 1st. There will be a $50 fee to unlock the phones.
This is what Paul Brislen (Vodafone's external communications manager in NZ) had to say on it:
Hi all,
Vodafone’s mobiles are sold exclusively for use on Vodafone New Zealand’s network.
From 1 May we are locking new handsets to our network. All new handsets sold will include information about handset locking and how to unlock handsets.
Locked handsets can be unlocked for a fee of $50.
This is being done to protect the customers’ experience of the Vodafone brand. Vodafone brands its mobiles with both the Vodafone and Vodafone Live! look and feel. If a customers takes a Vodafone mobile to another network, the customer won’t be able to access the Vodafone experience and services.
Cheers
Paul
He posted this at the Geekzone forum (it's pretty cool that he posts there, I must admit that, although there are direct benefits to him also). The comment I made there is that its not the lying that hurts, but the credit he's giving our intelligence - I mean "this is being done to protect the customers experience". Spin-doctoring at its finest - this is being done to make it difficult for people to jump ship pure and simple.
Mark my words Vodafone - if your competitors about to enter the market offer better data plans you may well see an exodus.
The upside is that I can now start selling my services unlocking Nokia's - thanks for putting some money in my pocket Vodafone!
To New Zealand readers: you can get a slice of that pie too - I linked to instructions for how to debrand Nokia's in my post on GPS in N-Series devices in NZ!