'In areas where 3G reception was good, the cards performed well, but in areas of marginal 3G performance, the cards performed badly,' Grover says.

'However, if the GPRS profile is selected or used, the user is charged casual data rates for GPRS connection. The data plan selected for 3G is irrelevant and the user receives additional charges on the monthly bill. Costs for using 3G can become unmanageable if they occurred outside a 3G region.'

Grover says he contacted the Vodafone help desk again and was told the WOW store had given him the wrong version of 5.02 and that he needed to download the New Zealand version. 'However, the software was identical. The WOW store then suggested we try version 6.0, which had not been officially approved for use on the New Zealand network. At that point, we gave up and are now migrating the customer to Telecom's 3G network,' he says.

'Despite Vodafone spending a year installing and testing their 3G network, it simply isn't up to an acceptable standard, especially for those people who simply need it to work without having to debug it or think about how to operate within in.'

Vodafone says it is very disappointed that Food and Commodity Brokers did not receive the level of service Vodafone aspired to provide.