Australia, New Zealand & the South Pacific - Prepaid SIM For Both Oz and NZ?

Folks,

Mrs Flies and I are making a return visit to your beautiful countries in late June. I know, it's the dead of winter, but she has a business trip Down Under, so you take what you can get!

I'm pretty familiar with prepaid SIMs and have used them before with a couple of unlocked Motorola GSM phones with no problems. I've bought prepaids from the Vodaphone store in SYD on previous trips.

Here's my question: We are going to both Oz and NZ on this trip. Is there a pre-paid SIM that works in both countries or will we have to buy one in each country? She would be calling me from OZ while on business and we would be occasionally calling the US from both countries.

Thanks for any help and advice anyone can throw my way.

This might be what you're looking for http://www.telestial.com/sim_regional.php?ID=AU

This might be what you're looking for http://www.telestial.com/sim_regional.php?ID=AU

Thanks very much! I had bought a SIM from them before, but I didn't think they would have one for both Oz and NZ. Actually, it's a package deal where they give you a SIM for each country. I bought one for Austria from them, but it didn't work in my phone. I called them when I got back home. They gave me my money back and said they would knock 20% off my next purchase without me even hinting at anything like a discount. Great customer service!

Here is another option. It's called TravelSIM http://www.travelsim.com/content/eng/13/ and it looks fairly reasonable and works in a lot of countries. In fact, I may try it myself on our trip to Scandinavia in September!

Here is another option. It's called TravelSIM http://www.travelsim.com/content/eng/13/ and it looks fairly reasonable and works in a lot of countries. ...I was curious how these "reasonable" rates compared with Australian roaming to NZ (and Aus local sim rates), and it is about 500% more expensive. You pay a hefty premium for single-sim convenience. YMMV (there are lots of different rates in Australia with large discounts as the monthly usage increases). Vodafone Traveller in NZ using an Australian sim would be a lot cheaper than the other 2 options mentioned in this thread. So would most of the other Australian plans. I think Vodafone has great coverage so it is the high-end service (along with Telstra, which is always more expensive). Remember that incoming calls are free using an Australian sim (while Travelsim charges by the minute for incoming calls in NZ for example). Of course the cost computation is very complex due to the non-linear roaming.

This might be what you're looking for http://www.telestial.com/sim_regional.php?ID=AU

I actually work for the parent company of Telestial. We have SIM cards that work everywhere:) If anyone needs info on this stuff drop me a line. I won't spam in here:)

Is there a pay as you go broadband for laptops that works in both Australia and New Zealand?

No. You'll need a separate SIM in Australia and NZ for Prepaid Broadband. Vodafone NZ only recently started to offer Prepaid HSDPA Broadband (http://www.vodafone.co.nz/mobile-broadband/which-plan-is-right.jsp). In Australia there are half a dozen options, depending on how much data and coverage you need.

Here is another option. It's called TravelSIM http://www.travelsim.com/content/eng/13/ and it looks fairly reasonable and works in a lot of countries. In fact, I may try it myself on our trip to Scandinavia in September!

From a quick look, the rates here seem significantly higher than what I can get by pay $5/mo for an international plan on my standard Cingular/ATT service.