MY “VODAFONE EXPERIENCE”

Now here’s a couple of interesting articles:

“Vodafone earns a Tui's from Aardvark”

“Vodafone's deception uncovered?”

With so much Vodafone talk about the “Vodafone experience,” I want to share MY “Vodafone experience” with you. Today, I have concluded my 6-month struggle to make my Vodem (Vodafone broadband modem, pictured right) work here in New Zealand. And what is that conclusion? I'm told, "Your [80 quid!] UK Vodem can’t be unlocked for use in New Zealand.”

When I was in the UK in June 2010, I was in a house with no internet. I needed internet. I was cut off from the world – naked, alone. Mother says, “You need a Vodafone data stick – they’re amazing and cheap.” £80 down, and a struggle to get it to work, I remind myself NEVER to seek technology purchase advice from my Luddite mother, ever again. The Vodem’s installation certainly wasn’t intuitive! It worked to a fashion, but I was also in a house with poor Vodafone coverage. As I was only in the UK for 7 weeks, I wasn’t too worried about the cost or inconvenience of getting it to work. After all, I could use it back in New Zealand, couldn’t I?

Come the Christchurch earthquakes of 2010-11, I was ruing the fact that I did not test my Vodem stick on landing back in Godzone New Zealand. I didn’t have a New Zealand SIM chip for it, and I didn’t have any credit on it. Power went out as a result of the quakes, and I had no way of emailing, Facebooking or blogging folk to say “We’re OK!” So, I had to (gasp!) plug in an old cord analogue phone, and actually talk to people.

But why shouldn’t my Vodem work? I shouldn't have needed to test it - should I ? After all, Vodafone is an international brand. You should be able to take your Vodafone devices around the world, put in a local SIM chip and use them as you see fit, shouldn’t you? I took my Ericsson phone from New Zealand, bought a UK SIM chip, and BINGO! It worked. Much cheaper than Vodafone Global Roaming, and I still had my NZ phone numbers. However, as the articles above imply, this ability to take MY devices overseas and use a local SIM chip is an increasingly rare occurrence. Vodafone are starting to lock devices so that they only work in the country of purchase. Hands up who thinks that’s bloody wrong?

Vodafone might say, “Well why didn’t you just take your NZ SIM chip over to the UK and use the full ‘Vodafone experience’ with global roaming? Retain your phone number and still send/receive texts as though you were in New Zealand?” Why didn’t I? Because it is sodding, prohibitively expensive. I have heard too many first-hand accounts of friends who have done exactly that, and ended up with a Vodafone bill at the end of the month for THOUSANDS. By locking phones, Vodafone are forcing us down that path. Hands up who thinks that's an exercise in fleecing?

So, when I finally came to test my Vodem here in NZ, I encountered an increasingly ridiculous set of barriers to having it work. When I plugged the Vodem into my new laptop, unsurprisingly, a message told me; “Your software is out of date for your device – please update to the latest version.” So I did. I downloaded a larger, more intrusive Vodafone application to my laptop that wanted to control all my network connections! Sigh. Still, the Vodem didn’t work. I took my laptop and Vodem to the Vodafone shop to be told, I had the “wrong kind” of money on the SIM chip. It needed to be DATA money, you see. Hands up who thinks that’s just silly? So, still no joy. The Vodafone rep continued by telling me, “Hmm … Because you bought it in the UK, you need to phone our Helpline to get the settings changed.” So I phoned the helpline. And just now, “Abdul” from the overseas “Vodafone” Helpline has told me that the device – MY Vodem that I paid 80 quid for – is locked to the UK and can’t be unlocked. In other words, folks, Vodafone devices are now being "zoned."

This is as insidious as the whole DVD-region-zoning farce. As with zoning of Vodafone devices, Region Zoning of DVDs by the film studios has absolutely NO BENEFIT at all to the consumers, and is designed PURELY to achieve the maximum possible additional marginal revenue in the targeted country. In other words, UK consumers are prepared to pay more for a DVD than NZ consumers – but the only way corporations can take advantage of that – C O N T R O L T H A T – is by the region zoning. They make a DVD that will work in the NZ, but not the UK. SO, UK customers can’t buy the cheaper NZ DVDs – they have to buy the more expensive UK DVDs. It is a market aberration - something that the right-wing hacks never talk about when their precious corporations break the rules of their precious “free” market. And they wonder why pirate downloading is so prolific? Vodafone's programme of locking of devices is another perfect example of that market aberration. There is absolutely no reason to lock its devices. The customer doesn’t want it. But Vodafone wants it. Vodafone wants the lucrative, get-money-for-doing-nothing-extra revenue. Actually, it comes down to our misperception that Vodafone is an international company. It’s not. It is a set of local companies called “Vodafone” who all have their own, separate accounting to an international holding company. This, then, actually lends itself to individual country Vodafone companies competing with each other; Vodafone NZ doesn't want Vodafone UK poaching "their" revenue. So, with roaming, Vodafone NZ will secure the revenue when I take my NZ phone to the UK – but not if I buy a UK SIM chip! Hence, the anti-competitive, anti-customer moves from Vodafone to lock devices - when it suits Vodafone.

It gets better (!). Wait till you hear about the hypocrisy. When the boot is on the other foot, Vodafone bleat, “Foul.” In Germany, T-Mobile are also starting to lock their devices - iPhones in this instance. Vodafone wants to prevent this to get a slice of the action. So determined was Vodafone to ensure unlocked devices in Germany .... IT WENT TO COURT:

“According to the [Vodafone] injunction, filed at a regional court in Hamburg, the goal is to stop the sale of the iPhone if it is sold only in connection with a 24 month T-Mobile contract and/or is blocked in such a way that it can only be used in a T-Mobile network.” [Reuters].

In other words, Vodafone wants T-Mobile, the German incumbent, to UNLOCK iPhones (because it suits Vodafone in Germany, of course). Yet, in the UK and New Zealand, Vodafone is doing the exact opposite! Unbelievable. This kind of hypocritical, greedy, anti-competitive behaviour is exactly what sprouts protest from the people [CLICK HERE]. God Bless social media.

And God Bless true competition, in the form of newbie, 2-Degrees. So, stuff you, Vodafone. I’ll bin my worthless £80 Vodem, and buy a rival $45 2-Degrees data stick. At least they seem to be trying to help the New Zealand customer – for now. And yet, I wonder if 2-Degrees will behave in exactly the same way as Vodafone, when 2-Degrees becomes as big. Why did the scorpion sting the fox as he was hitching a ride on that fox across a wide river - knowing he too would drown? Because that’s what scorpions do. Like the scorpion, big corporations will always try to sting the consumers they depend on – because that’s what big corporations do.