Mobile broadband price a killer

rpm said:
Currently an average movie file can cost up to £300 to download on a mobile device and a single music track can be as much as £14 if it’s not part of your monthly data download allowance.
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Can this be true? Even in 'touch your toes and receive some length' South Africa, this would be extravageant, not?
 
i guess they over there are also milked to some extent :D
 
I would guess its because mobile high speed connections are deemed to be a luxury / targetted at the rich corporate market... Rather than here being a viable competitor to fixed line connections.
 
That is terrible. Having a look around, they can pay as little as R200 (with R15 to the Pound exchange rate) for a 22Mb line (I kid you not) with a high (or no) cap...

And then we hear about their mobile service which is as bad as this. I thought our mobile data costs were too much... Look at these. WOW.

Thanks Vodacom for not being the sharks that your British comrades seem to be
 
As XCentricDave said, its because people in the UK generally will not use their mobile broadband for what their ADSL can do.
They may use 30MB a month, a few emails on the bus, some IRC etc.
We tend to use it because Telkom is too useless in many cases to install ADSL.

Vodacom et al would simply not have the number of users using their broadband if Telkom were a service orientatated company.
 
I moved over to the UK in July last year. Had enough of being ripped off for comms among other things.

I use Vodafone and it costs me £7.50 per month for 120MB.
It costs £2 for every MB over that. You could also pay £30 a month for 450MB. I dont use it much so have never used the 120MB. For what I need I am happy to pay the £7.50 a month.

In comparism my ADSL internet costs £11 per month to BT for line rental with another £27.49 to my ISP (8MB line unlimited usage). This also includes all land line telephone calls inside the UK. I spend on average another £20 a month on telephone calls back to SA & Namibia. Thats for around 4 hours a week I spend on the phone back home.
 
Asuming our wireless prices are profitable to the operators like VC and the like, which I guess it must be otherwise they won't do it. It just again goes to show how over priced our ADSL prices are in comparison, looking at the price gap in the UK. I'm quite happy to pay a premium for mobility, but then only if fixed line service is usable and affordable.
 
Mobile data is considered as a luxury where as fixed line is more of a staple.
 
From the sound of things, it's their out-of-bundle price that is insane.

RDPearson paid £0.0625 / MB in bundle, and £2 out of bundle.

At £2 / MB, a song could easily chalk up £14, in a mere 7 MB. In Bundle it chomps only £0.44, and that's only a 120MB bundle.

Doesn't sound bad from an SA perspective at all. I Pay R28 for a 20MB bundle to cover some odd RSS reading on the go. Our out-of-bundle R2, translates to only £0.14 though, much better than their rates.

For a MyMeg 150, you'd still pay R120. That's R0.80 / MB -> £0.057. Roughly comparable to their rates.

Just goes to show, Telkom is charging the insane amounts, the cellulars are pretty much up there with the rest of the world.

Anyone know what the prices are in the Americas?
 
Maybe that's where telkom get all their figures from? The UK wireless market..
 
Pyro said:
Just goes to show, the cellulars are pretty much up there with the rest of the world.
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Our Mobile broadband situation is actually one of the best in the world!
Offerings like Vodacom's HSDPA speed...

But this has been forced on them by Telscum's rediculous service, price, quality, support... etc.. .etc...
 
yea... I cannot afford to get a 3G card or anything. So I don't have any experience with the speeds that actually get reached...

What speed is it supposed to reach? And what speed on average are you actually getting?
 
I see a pattern developing here ... bank charges highest in the world, data charges, dstv high fees .. (a country run by bean counters?)
 
Oh puhleeze. Don't sing praises to Vodacom et al when talking low mobile prices. Whoever wrote this clearly don't know the state of the situation, is this a Vodacom incentive? We might have been the best in the world at some time but now are at the bottom of the list again.

Mams said:
T mobile UK:

Web'n'walk Plus (12) Unlimited data £29.00 (R412) GPRS/UMTS / 3G
Choose web'n'walk Plus for browsing, email, downloads, streaming and instant messaging.

To ensure a high quality of service for all our customers, a fair use policy of 3GB (of data sent and received in the UK) per month applies. If you exceed 3GB per month, we may tell you to reduce your future use. If you again exceed 3GB per month, we may tell you that we are going to apply network protection controls, resulting in a reduced network speed for 14 days. If you exceed 3GB per month for a third time, we may tell you that we are going to apply further network protection controls, resulting in a reduced network speed until you upgrade your price plan to include a larger data allowance. We do not permit use of this service for internet phone calls. Roaming charges apply

Web'n'walk Max (12) Unlimited data £44.00(R627) GPRS/UMTS / 3G
Choose web'n'walk Max if you want all the benefits of web'n'walk Plus as well as internet calling services like Skype.

To ensure a high quality of service for all our customers, a fair use policy of 10GB (of UK data both sent and received) per month applies. If you exceed 10GB per month, we may tell you to reduce your future use. If you again exceed 10GB per month, we may tell you that we are going to apply network protection controls, resulting in a reduced network speed for 14 days. If you exceed 10GB per month for a third time, we may tell you that we are going to apply further network protection controls, resulting in a reduced network speed until you upgrade your price plan to include a larger data allowance

= R62.70 per gb - still not good - anyone know of some real good "unlimited" options
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So while it may cost you £300 for a movie if you actually do what you are suppose to do and make use of the situation you can get 2 full length DVD movies for £44.00(R627). Show me where in South Africa with mobile data you can get the same for under R1945.
 
Skeptik said:
LOL
This forum is very Vodacom-centric.
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Maybe, but saying that South African cellular operators are not ripping us off because someone didn't do proper research to give the real prices of mobile broadband in the UK shows that people really don't have a clue of the situation. If I was paying what these people were paying I wouldn't complain especially since they have cheap fixed line broadband.
 
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