The petition to Vodafone New Zealand has closed tonight with an impressive 1994 signatures from Kiwis upset at the way in which the iPhone is currently available on the New Zealand market. Whilst some are choosing to pay the high price of a 'handset only' purchase and modify settings to use their Prepay SIM, the fact remains that officially, there is no prepay option for New Zealanders. Nowhere is the fury at Vodafone's decision more telling than in the statistics associated with the online petition. Of the 1994 signatures received, 1301 of those were received in the three days after prices and plans were announced.

As you can see from the chart (not all days are listed as that would be too big an image) taken from the Petition Online website, there was a flurry of activity on the petition when people realised the high costs involved in signing on to a Vodafone plan. This is in marked contrast to the days prior, when the suggestion was that users might be able to get an iPhone for $199. Whilst this ended up being true, on the 7th of July it was revealed that this was only on a 2 year plan at an ongoing cost of $250 NZ per month.

What happens now?

The cost of sending the petition to Vodafone directly from the PetitionOnline.com website was too prohibitive. Instead I have downloaded and collated the signatures into a document (60 pages in total) which I will be printing and sending a copy to Vodafone New Zealand and to Apple. At the same time, on behalf of all signatories, I have made a financial donation to the PetitionOnline.com website to thank them for providing such an easy to use and useful service.

Regards, Philip Roy

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Cuby said: August 06, 2008 | url    Votes: +1

	Thanks Thanks a lot for all your work setting up this petition and getting it printed off and sent to Vodafone. All your effort is really appreciated! Also good on you for making a donation! It's such a shame that there wasn't six more signatures, but oh well. 1994 is a pretty impressive number! Cheers! Cuby
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Philip Roy said: August 08, 2008   Votes: +1

I'll have to send this next week now. I've made a slight mistake in printing it out. You all had the option of having your email address completely private, public or available to me only. I have no way of determining whether the email addresses that came through were set to either of the last two (that's poor design on the part of the system)....and at the same time, I'm not overly keen on sending VFNZ a petition with a multitude of email addresses, which they could then harvest and email everyone on to drum up a sale. Not suggesting they would, just not comfortable with that as a privacy issue. Have therefore shredded the current version that shows email addresses and will print a new set.

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Philip Roy said: August 15, 2008   Votes: +0

	Hi all, the petition was posted this afternoon. Sorry, I had misprinted again and only just spotted it at the last minute. Anyway, it's on its way to Apple and VFNZ. Phil
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