I have since switched mobile provider with the change-over having occurred on Monday 16th January 2017. In short, was enticed by a better plan arrangement at Spark with more being offered at the same price point for my specific individual usage pattern.

I will state that Two Degrees’ Mobile product itself has been overall quite “Good”… as in, not too many mishaps and I have never needed to contact their help desk.

Though, Instead of paying for Spotify alone at $13.00, then 2 degrees for 100MB of Mobile Data a month at $6.00 and casual rate for everything else (Calls and Texts), I discovered I could combine those two services, and get instead 500MB of Data, included local minutes and included local texts by moving to Telecom Spark’s $19 Music Pack.

The major point I can currently see in favour of me sticking with Two Degrees is that I would be helping to support competition in the mobile network service market space.

However, The Casual pre-pay rates Two Degrees Mobile now charge are among the most expensive in the market and I feel, IMO disappointingly harks right back to the rates I was paying to Vodafone before 2 Degrees came on the scene.

Prior to switching, I did contact 2 Degrees Mobile to see if they perhaps had a slightly cheaper plan, arrangement, or deal that could more closely match or narrow the gap with what Telecom was offering in respect of my individual usage pattern… It appears 2 Degrees Mobile couldn’t.

As another consideration, Two Degrees Mobile it appears is now only 8% Locally owned (and falling) and they may or may not be that more locally owned than say NZX listed Spark, so any patriotism aspect is pretty much gone for me at that level.

There’s always a possibility I may return, however the price to feature ratio between Spark and Two Degrees Mobile for my individual specific usage pattern, I felt was simply too large to ignore or overlook.

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Note: 22 March 2017 – This was posted before 2 Degrees Mobile changed over to their New Billing system and hence my decision to switch is not related to such.