Air NZ data charges
February 8th, 2011 at 4:00 pm by David FarrarThe Herald reports:
Passengers on Air New Zealand’s new black A320 will be able to make phone calls, send texts and check emails – if they are Vodafone customers.
The plane is one of two A320s which the airline is making “mobile phone capable” in the next month.
Being able to text and e-mail will be useful. Not so sure about the wisdom of voice calls, but to be fair in theory one can already make these on their international flights through the in seat phones.
Passengers will pay roaming costs of $3.50 a minute and 80c for every outbound text. They will also pay $20 per megabyte of data.
Well fuck that. $20,000 per GB of data is insanely high.
Will they also charge for incoming calls and texts?
Tags: Air New Zealand, Vodafone
February 8th, 2011 at 4:09 pm
Why if only on Vodafone?
Vote:Did they feel Telecoms data was to expensive??
February 8th, 2011 at 4:12 pm
Vodaphone is dead Farrar,also Vodafone is dead,
Vote:its a dead joke
February 8th, 2011 at 4:14 pm
Don’t worry, there are plenty of airlines out there better than Air New Zealand, and they will not be charging such clueless rates for data.
Vote:February 8th, 2011 at 4:20 pm
every time I see Redbaiter here I feel better
Vote:February 8th, 2011 at 4:20 pm
You say this why pq?
Vote:February 8th, 2011 at 4:21 pm
Yes they intend to charge for Incoming calls – about $2 per minute from memory.
Vote:I’ll just sit back and be out of contact I think
February 8th, 2011 at 4:25 pm
You can’t turn your phone off for an hour?
Vote:February 8th, 2011 at 4:42 pm
surely they mean 20c/MB?
Vote:February 8th, 2011 at 4:46 pm
“Passengers on Air New Zealand’s new black A320″
Just the start of what will be a year full of cultural cringe stories surrounding the tax payer funded Rugby World cup.
Vote:February 8th, 2011 at 4:49 pm
It’s bad enough now that we have to put up with prats on their mobiles in restaurants, public transport, and other quiet areas. Who in their right mind would want to be in earshot of some needy social misfit for an hour and a half while trapped at 35,000 feet? I just can’t see why this is necessary. Will they pace back and forth in the aisle too as they make sure as many of us possible know how important they must be to make these calls? Lord spare us.
Vote:February 8th, 2011 at 4:54 pm
Ironically, the “Travel” supplement in today’s Herald (link below) includes an item by one of their staff who traveled on the new black-painted Air NZ Boeing 777-300 plane from the LA to Auckland.
She is scathing about the reduced seating room in this new plane’s Economy section, noting that when the passenger in front reclined their seat, there was not enough room for her to even open her laptop PC, on her lap.
So, that’s one way to avoid data charges – don’t give the passengers any room to even use their laptops on the flight.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/travel/news/article.cfm?c_id=7&objectid=10704723
Vote:February 8th, 2011 at 5:11 pm
As one who was around in the 80s when we had bricks and by God they were bricks this is a backward step for me.
Oh for the days when you could ignore the BOSS and HEAD OFFICE by being out of cell phone coverage or before that when you couldnt fine a pay phone that worked.
Now you are in bloody contact 24/7 no peace no quiet just the constant demands.
the current thrusters dont know what they have missed When life was much slower and less in your face and you actually had a life instead of being locked into to the job 24/7.
Vote:February 8th, 2011 at 5:16 pm
It’s called “market skimming” and it’s bloody beautiful, as it means that the “early adapting” idiots are paying for the infrastructure.
Vote:February 8th, 2011 at 5:21 pm
Easy to avoid. Don’t use the phone. Just like driving your car. Cheap if you do that.
Vote:February 8th, 2011 at 5:21 pm
Thanks for the laugh Marcw. (4:49) Very good comment.
Vote:February 8th, 2011 at 5:26 pm
I know this service is running through Inmarsat – hence the stratospheric data charges. And I know Air New Zealand is oh so badly trying to be a hip young huge listed corporate (yeah, like that will work).
But this is a PR disaster in the making.
Sometime soon after this service goes live there’s going to be a well-meaning and not-so-technical old lady who forgets to turn off her phone, and runs up $500 or so of data charges on a $59 flight. She’s going to go to John Campbell and the Moustache, who’ll tell a tale of uncaring corporate greed etc etc. Someone – not the old lady – is going to have to pick up the tab, but not before they look like extortionate grinches.
Frankly, if Vodafone and Air New Zealand want to look like market progressives they should sort out a ground-based signal system like you see in the States. Until then, any Inmarsat system is just waiting there to blow up in their face.
Vote:February 8th, 2011 at 5:55 pm
Cool, be able to order drinks from the bar without looking like an alcoholic.
Vote:February 8th, 2011 at 6:23 pm
Lol @ $20 a MB.
Still, it’ll come down. Eventually airplanes will be designed properly so they are intrinsicly safe against stray EMF signals; a good idea anyway in case of solar storms, gamma ray bursts and the occasional nuclear war
I see Inmarsat’s new global xpress ™ network is due to go live in 2014. The beginning of a true datasphere.
Vote:February 8th, 2011 at 6:56 pm
$20 a meg??? some people are gonna get a nasty shock when the bill comes in.
i think there should be a prize for the first dude who downloads a movie during flight
Vote:February 8th, 2011 at 7:07 pm
adze suggests:
“Mythbusters” devoted an entire episode to trying to do anything to an airplane’s electronics with a mobile phone (on the ground, of course). From memory they ended up with dozens of mobiles in the “plane” all ringing and texting and there wasn’t a flicker on any of the instruments.
When I had a go in a commercial flight simulator, which is real enough to be used to train people going for their commercial pilots’ licenses, I tried the same thing (albeit with one cellphone). Again, not a thing.
Has there ever been so much as one air disaster or near miss where the accident investigators have said “It would have been fine except for the guy in 4B sending a text?”.
Yet more restrictions on people, clearly with the idea of making this sort of exorbitant profit from people. And it’s not like this is new technology and the airlines are playing catch-up. They’ve had a couple of decades to test the technology and figure it out.
Vote:February 8th, 2011 at 7:33 pm
Seems you might be on the right track Rex, here’s a snippet from the relevant Wiki article:
Vote:February 8th, 2011 at 7:47 pm
I see the same article references a USA Today article quoting cellphone company Cingular, who suggest that the cellphone ban should remain in place because of the nuisance effect of having some asshole talking loudly next to other passengers.
$20 a minute for VOX is a good idea
Vote:February 8th, 2011 at 8:19 pm
What Adze said, I don’t want to sit next to some prick who can’t wait an hour to use a phone.
Vote:February 8th, 2011 at 8:44 pm
Michael:
I, on the other hand, who have to sit for six to nine hours to get to various destinations on domestric flights – let alone people flaying to Europe where they may be in the air for days – might not mind so much. Anyway it’s not so much talking on the phone I want to do, it’s sending and receiving emails and working online.
Here’s an idea for the airlines – charge reasonable rates for cellphone services and bill Luddite customers for using the cone of silence
Adze:
That reference material is interesting. I wonder how someone would go in court if they used their phone on a flight and got penalised by the airline, then took them to court and asked for evidence of harm as opposed to speculation?
Vote:February 8th, 2011 at 9:32 pm
I flew the Qantas A380 to LA, and yes, i paid to receive inflight texts and phone calls. But it was definitely worth it.. When you’re stuck on a plane for 14 hours, it’s worth it to have a few minutes to speak to the nearest + dearest.
Vote:February 8th, 2011 at 9:41 pm
Here was me thinking a book and movies were the way to fill in the gaps when flying.
Vote:February 8th, 2011 at 10:27 pm
I think the rates sound quite reasonable, given that sending data to a plane must require faster transmission speeds so the packets can catch up and jump on. Especially if flying away from the data source.
In fact, I heard that pilots will have to slow down to half speed to ensure that those 3GB uploads of repeat episodes of Friends will be received (and well worth the $60,000 too) otherwise, the laugh track might not make the transmission, and completely ruin the episode.
Vote:February 8th, 2011 at 10:43 pm
This may be a stupid question, but how can Air NZ guarantee you’re connected to their roaming network and not simply to Vodafone? (Unless you’re over the Tasman or somewhere).
I also don’t think people should be liable for roaming charges simply because they’ve left their phone on. Air NZ’s network should require manual connection.
Vote:February 8th, 2011 at 11:03 pm
the phone will connect to the base station with the strongest signal – which, will of course be on the plane .
I wonder, though, if the base station breaks down, then all the cellphones will search for ground based stations.
but, maybe I am wrong.
I do know, they offer similar services to cruise liners and ferrys.
I’ve also heard, that making calls from the air can cause issues with the ground based cellular network – because the phone can see so many more cell sites than usual it is outside the parameters of expected conditions and can cause software to glitch. But, not sure if this is true or not, and probably this has been fixed already.
Vote:February 8th, 2011 at 11:13 pm
Well, probably not the best time to torrent an HD movie then. Put in an even more extreme way – it’s $20 million per terabyte! Nearly worth launching your own satellite into orbit for? Or you could try to attach a really long coil of Cat5e to the plane.
But it’s still a reasonable price if you’re just checking your oh-so-important-business email, and you can’t wait until you land and $4 isn’t too much. When cellphones first got internet it was nearly that expensive to use them on the ground.
For people who defend the right of businesses to ramp up their prices on a public holiday, you sure do whinge about internet costs!
Vote:February 8th, 2011 at 11:19 pm
Rex, I think they’d be fined under FCC regulations, not (just) under airline policy.
Vote:February 8th, 2011 at 11:42 pm
A service that wasn’t available before, and is available now, is being charged at the rate necessary to recover some of the upfront set up costs.
However, it does simply debase flying another level, as the twatterati resume their addiction to constantly communicating every inane moment of their mundane lives to others who share similar spheres of mind numbing boredom that they can’t simply sit with their own thoughts or a book. All acting as if they are in the midst of a life or death battle that means they need instant communication everywhere all the time.
Still, if people want to email or text while on a flight, it doesn’t bother me as long as some inane beeping is suppressed. What is most disconcerting are phone calls made by the inconsiderate halfwits who think they need to shout on a phone for people to hear them.
Lufthansa has announced it will roll out email and SMS on flights, but not calls – on long haul routes in particular the last thing I would want is some git with a cellphone ringing in the midst of an overnight flight, and then shouting “I’m on a plane.. yeah.. cool eh”.
Vote:February 9th, 2011 at 12:30 am
vIRGIN
Vote:February 9th, 2011 at 3:55 am
I vaguely recall that volume based Internet in NZ was around $0.20 per megabyte in the early-mid ’90s. So this is only 100 times more expensive. Way back then (last century) it was also *cheaper* to provide Internet via satellite that it was by undersea cable.
How times have changed.
Singapore Air once offered WiFi on long-haul flights (mid ’00s) but this was canned when Boeing’s Connexion service was shut down. For a while it was free and I tried it on a flight from NZ. Worked well enough to check email. I would not begrudge a similar service at that price.
Now SIA’s service is about to be relaunched at $8 / megabyte. Still crazy pricing.
AirNZ should be looking at the US carriers’ ground-based mobile data which runs at much lower rates – like fixed $10 per flight.
Vote:February 9th, 2011 at 7:34 am
@wreck it’s really hard to get service other than through the plane unless you are down around 3000 feet or so. Did once get a text tho at 42,000 feet going over San Diego but think that was pretty random.
Vote:February 9th, 2011 at 8:07 am
TimG_Oz
The A320 dont fly to LA…………….
David –
Vote:why are you surprised about AirNZ charging for outgoing and incoming. Did you think they would do this FOR NOTHING!!!
February 9th, 2011 at 8:25 am
Just as bad as a tossa screeming loudly into his phone while sitting next to you will be the person that hasn;t turned off their keypad tones sending a long text. I’ll be sure to pack my ear plugs!
Vote: