New Zealand's cellphone plans are among the cheapest in the developed world, but top-end plans heavy on data use and voice calls are almost triple the cost of those in Australia.
A report by the Commerce Commission found a low-end plan with 30 calls and 100 megabytes of data is 40 percent cheaper than the OECD average.
But a top end plan with 900 calls and two gigabytes of data costs 20 percent more than the OECD average and nearly triple price in Australia.
Telecommunication's Users Association chief executive Paul Brislen said that was due to lack of competition. "You can clearly see where 2degrees does play agressively, in the low spend area of the market, where suddenly we are better than Australia and better than the OECD average by a long chalk. But at the high end where there's really just Telecom and Vodafone in the on-account space, the numbers don't look terribly rosy."
Telecommunications Commissioner Stephen Gale has a different theory. In his view, the top end of the market is dominated by businesses which are less price sensitive and telecommunication companies are trying to recover fixed costs from that area, rather than the more competetive space at the lower end.
But a spokesperson for 2degrees, Mat Bolland, said his experience is that consumers want the lowest price regardless of whether they are a business or not.
Mr Bolland wants the Commerce Commission to investigate whether Vodafone and Telecom could be to blame for higher prices for top end services.
Telecom said prices are competetive given New Zealand's low population and the high cost of infrastructure. The company said Commerce Commission analysis on mobile data did not appear to take in mobile value-added services such as free wi-fi or free Spotify.
