Mobiles (Pre-Departure)

--Portland, OR--

Today I'm looking at cell phone plans ahead of my move. My iPhone 5 should work on the local networks once I arrive. The main thing I have to consider is what plan to use for my phone.

AT&T roaming rates for NZ are US$3.00/min of voice, $0.002/kb of data, and text messages are $0.50, or $1.50 with photo and video. Basically, I'd burn through a phone budget almost immediately.

AT&T also sells monthly Passport Packages, which give unlimited text messaging, a decent amount of data usage, and a cheaper voice rate. The cheapest option comes in at $40 for 200 MB ($0.20/MB over the max) and voice calls at $1.00/min. However, this plan is only available if I maintain my domestic US phone plan, so there's no way this option would be feasible for a 3-year stay.

Alternatively, I can unlock my phone at an AT&T store in the US, and then plug in a New Zealand SIM card for a local mobile carrier, of which there are four options: Vodafone, Skinny, 2Degrees, and Spark. All of them offer prepay cards with the option to 'top up' on minutes and data. Skinny is the only company that doesn't offer a 'postpay' plan.

Each one of these carriers has tons of ways to customize what you get out of a pre- or post-pay package, and it's really overwhelming trying to consider all the possibilities at once. So just to narrow things down, I'm gonna look at what it would cost me to call or text my loved ones in the US with each carrier.
 
Vodafone doesn't have any clear option for making international calls on their personal plans, but they can be made at $0.89/min to the US, or $0.31/text, on a prepay plan.


Contacting US numbers with Skinny plans costs NZ$1.39/min, and $0.20/text (which seems to be the same price for all in-country texts that don't come with a package). They also offer an Overseas Chat add-on which gives 300 minutes for $10/month.

Costs for calling the US with 2Degrees depend on whether the package is prepay or monthly. With prepay it's $0.89/min, $0.20/text, and $0.50/photo text. On a monthly plan, the rates are $0.69/min, and the same price for texts. However, 2Degrees also has a $10 prepaid International Chat Pack with 300 minutes, but no texts.

Spark offers international packages of 200 min and 100 texts for a chosen country at $9.00/month ($0.91/min to North America and $0.30/text over the max). Spark monthly mobile plans also come bundled with Spotify Premium and Lightbox, a New Zealand television streaming service, while some of the prepaid plans come with Spotify only.

So those are the contenders! At this point, Spark seems to be the best deal for someone like me who will mostly be using my phone to text and browse the internet within NZ, and text and call people back home. But 2Degrees is also notable for having really good roll over policies. The question becomes, how important will texting people in the US be to me? 

Most likely, I should use an AT&T Passport Package for the first month, and decide between Spark and 2Degrees based on how often I text the US.