New data prices forget about ‘normal data customers’: CellC

“The recent reductions in data prices by MTN and Vodacom certainly do not assist a normal data using customer, who utilizes less than 500MB. Such a customer (of whom the vast majority is) would still be charged high prices. Prices have only been reduced in higher packages,” said Cell C.
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With all due respect to CellC, CellC has completely missed the broadband boat - while CellC only offers GPRS and EDGE with download speeds below the broadband threshold, all of CellC's wireless competitors offer broadband download speeds with the technologies that they have deployed, and the point behind making larger data bundles less expensive, is to match the higher speeds with larger data allowances.

Sure, CellC has found a sort of niche market where its customers are prepared to accept a service that is simply not broadband, when CellC has a broadband network then we can start comparing apples with apples...
 
We use less because its so damn expensive! The cheaper it becomes the more we will use. Gee how hard is that for SA businesses to figure out :rolleyes:
 
Cel C aint broadband, but they have a point there about the 500meg users.Can't they apply a scale of some sorts or special prices for low end users?
 
And what exactly do Cell C do for these people when they charge at R2/MB and don't even have a 3G network? These prices are aimed at broadband customers, anyone with an average usage of R5/Mb clearly isn't a broadband customer!
 
Cell C do have a point, in that the people who use a little less than the average person on this forum receive little to no reduction in their monthly costs. Someone who uses the net purely for email and a little surfing is surely being ripped off.
 
i personally exprience download speeds of 25kb/s with cellc's 3g service on my sony ericsson w810i. maybe with better rates ill probably use it more.
 
ogg said:
i personally exprience download speeds of 25kb/s with cellc's 3g service on my sony ericsson w810i. maybe with better rates ill probably use it more.
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They don't have a 3G service, that's EDGE! :rolleyes:
 
5 Mb a month??? Windows needs a lot more than that just to keep itself updated!!
 
Axis said:
5 Mb a month??? Windows needs a lot more than that just to keep itself updated!!
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They are not refering to people that use it as their main internet connection. They are talking about normal people that browse the internet on their phone to check the cricket score, their email and what is happening on facebook
 
JStrike said:
They are not refering to people that use it as their main internet connection. They are talking about normal people that browse the internet on their phone to check the cricket score, their email and what is happening on facebook
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Probably true only for the CellC network, but I seriously doubt that 5MB per month is "normal" internet connectivity data usage on any other networks - broadband or narrowband.

What CellC is probably seeing in its Virgin Mobile user stats, is that most of the Virgin Mobile customers are MXit addicts, and despite being connected 24*7 for a whole month via their cellphone, these customers end up only using about 5MB for chatting, but are likely to use any other connection for real internet connectivity - which of course would not show up in CellC's stats - and especially not if CellC has specifically focussed on exactly 5MB of data usage...
 
It is unbelievable how wrong the understanding of Cell C is regarding internet usage in South Africa. To make the statement that the average user uses 5 mb a month and so they must cater for that market is so laughable, its ridiculous.

Surely these decision makers are more intellegent or have more insight into the nature of the internet than that? Man their stupidity is incredible!
 
Before jumping the gun and saying that Cell C's estimates are wrong I think we should bear in mind that what they are saying does make sense for a specific target market. Namely the Mxit users I am talking about all the people who use the internet connection on their phone ( GPRS/EDGE ) solely for chatting purposes. I myself am a heavy internet user but I use ADSL for everything online broadband, I got frustrated with EDGE and GPRS ( using my 5140 as a modem for my PC which I started doing 2.5 years ago before everyone else, when I figured it out) and didnt want to bother with 3G.

At the moment I have Mxit on my phone and do chat a lot and I also occasionally do a quick google search and of course check my Gmail from my die hard getting somewhat crappy Nokia 5140. So my average data usage for the month is around 5meg or less. Now when you consider that a large amount of school kiddies and youth out there use their phone for just Mxit then yes there is a large sub 5meg market out there. I personally don't see the point of them trying to help these people say money because its on R10 for 5 meg so if the make it cheaper all you are scoring is a coke or something kind of pointless. Unless they are aiming at the cash strapped school children who can now save their tuck shop money. Perhaps they are hoping to get the youthful masses to join up with them so that oneday when they get proper jobs and can start making proper phone calls they will be with Cell C. A clever marketing strategy to attract future customers because many of these youngsters wont bother switching providers until they start making heavy work related calls later on... very clever
 
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