Be careful what you wish for with #DataMustFall

So be careful when you tell a network what its prices must be, and remove the option of having a great network and 100% coverage at a higher price.
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Sounds Dave-ish...
 
haha, you kidding me right? Vodacom's network sucks.

Dropped calls, incomplete calls, poor coverage... that is my experience, and I hear it from other people as well all the time.

9 times out of 10 my calls do not complete or get cut off.

One by one I am going to port my contracts over to Telkom cos if I have to deal with sucky networks - I might as well get better phones and data plans.
 
LazyLion said:
Vodacom's network sucks.
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This article reeks of psychological marketing manipulation

However, the reality looks very different. In the real world where reality drives decisions, the choice is simple:

Have a great network (coverage/performance) with higher prices.
Have a poor network (coverage/performance) with lower prices.

Vodacom has made a business decision to invest billions in its network each year to ensure it offers the best possible service to its customers.

Telkom, in comparison, decided to focus on certain areas to contain costs and offers “better value”.
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Article mentions Vodacom and Telkom, without even saying 'respectively' sums up the first bullet = Vodacom while the second bullet = Telkom in it's following sentences :whistle:

'The reality, clearly illustrated' :rolleyes:

Comparing VC with MTC... seriously? Where's the coverage for India, Nigeria at the very least

Do a full comparison of ALL SPs discussed in the #datamustfall movement
 
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I not punting any specific network, but one of the cost components, as mentioned in the article, is the land area required to cover (and I am not even taking about possible line of site problems)

As an example:
UK land area = 243,610 km²
South Africa land area = 1.221 million km²

Which one will be cheaper to cover?
 
So either a cheap car with fuel or expensive car with little fuel.. I'd go for cheap because at least it can take me somewhere hehe
 
Absinth said:
I not punting any specific network, but one of the cost components, as mentioned in the article, is the land area required to cover (and I am not even taking about possible line of site problems)

As an example:
UK land area = 243,610 km²
South Africa land area = 1.221 million km²

Which one will be cheaper to cover?
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Agreed. But after what? 24 years (MTN) I'm sure they have paid their investment over 100 fold. They network structure is already in place. The only expenses they have now is the upgrading of the network when new technology comes out and maintenance. Maintenance does not cost nearly as much as erecting and expanding the network.

Yes I am fully aware they are still rolling out coverage from time to time. We just got a tower about 3 months back near our plot. But they don't have the roll out expenses they had 20 years back. It's nothing but a smoke screen.
 
The great thing about competition, is that I can apply my own personal criteria when choosing not to use one network over another network (no names mentioned).

An open access broadband network sounds great, until you realise that government would be controlling the open access implementation.

The last thing anyone needs, is the corruption-ridden incompetent-cadre-infested parasitic ruling cANCer party in charge of a broadband network that everyone is forced to use because some incompetent tenderpreneur minister decided to illegally take back some/all of the spectrum to create an allegedly open access broadband network.

The post office minister should first successfully implement a trial open access network in some remote rural area where there is currently almost zero network coverage from any of the network operators.

If he can show everyone that his hair-brained scheme has a chance of working where costs are contained in one remote rural area, and spending is independently audited, he would have a case for doing the same thing in other rural areas, but not necessarily in urban areas which are already covered.
 
Have a great network (coverage/performance) with higher prices.
Have a poor network (coverage/performance) with lower prices.
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Or as with Vodacom a combination of both.

With competition, consumers will always have a choice. If you do not like your current mobile provider, you can move to a competitor.
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Already have. Getting better service at a better price from Cell C. How about that? ;)

Many #DataMustFall campaigners pointed to lower data prices in Namibia and Nigeria. What they failed to mention is the network quality and coverage in these countries.

In Nigeria, network quality is so bad that the Nigerian Communications Commission fined all four GSM operators for failing to meet Quality of Service standards.
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The NCC is anything but an example to look at. That budget deficit is really starting to show signs of desperation.
 
"a great network and 100% coverage"

Who's network this? Pray tell!
 
not even gonna read the propaganda. just lower it already...or make them lower it..
 
Strange that cell c can offer 100 gigs of prepaid data that lasts for 365 days for a once off fee of only R1000. Surely it costs the same to provide that data and monitor the usage as it does to provide and monitor outofbundle data which certain networks charge north of R2000 for ONE gig!
To my mind the #datathatmustfall as a first priority is the OOB rate.
 
jimmycool said:
Strange that cell c can offer 100 gigs of prepaid data that lasts for 365 days for a once off fee of only R1000. Surely it costs the same to provide that data and monitor the usage as it does to provide and monitor outofbundle data which certain networks charge north of R2000 for ONE gig!
To my mind the #datathatmustfall as a first priority is the OOB rate.
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They say they have to plan for capacity when people buy bundles and I assume this should be wholesale capacity ?

If this was 2 years ago I might have said ok, sure maybe you guys have to control cost, your back haul can only provide so much, international providers aren't peering here in South Africa, etc.

However all that has changed:

1) MTN and Vodacom should have ample capacity considering they offering fibre aggressively

2) NAPAfrica is offering Local peering which has grown tremendously in the past 2 years

3) The majority of smartphones on their networks almost guarantees that they can plan 2GB per device minimum per month.

4) International capacity has also grown tremendously over the past few years considering where we were in 2008

At the end of the day they are just a bunch of sharks !!
 
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