Cell C changes data billing increment

What constitutes a session here? Is it a time duration? Does a session end after a number of inactive minutes? How do they determine when a session ends? We have a number of sensor collection devices that send about 800 bytes every few minutes (and disconnect the TCP socket every time. It retains the GPRS PPP session on the cell network throughout the day though). So this means we will effectively be charged for 25KB of data for just the 800 bytes sent? If I'm not mistaken VC has 2KB increments?
 
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nelwa said:
Even though this might not really affect me, it seems like cellc is getting a lot of negative publicity the last couple of months...
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I'm going to repost from another thread so it get seen here as its quite relevant:

Is it an industry standard in SA or not.How do Vodacom,MTN and Telkom bill this?

Is Cell C simply taking the only flak because it is transparent in its billing systems or are they the only culprits here....to be honest at in bundle rates its a non issue to me but I can see how it would affect some people out of bundle especially if they have multiple disconnects in a day.

recre8 said:
What constitutes a session here? Is it a time duration? Does a session end after a number of inactive minutes? How do they determine when a session ends? We have a number of sensor collection devices that send about 800 bytes every few minutes (and disconnect the TCP socket every time. It retains the GPRS PPP session on the cell network throughout the day though). So this means we will effectively be charged for 25KB of data for just the 800 bytes sent? If I'm not mistaken VC has 2KB increments?
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If your device is not disconnecting during the day then it doesn't round it up to 25KB,the rounding is per day as far as I can see on my bill if you don't have any sessions dropping.
 
Cell C has standardised the billing increments of all of its data products to 25kb, which the company said will increase billing efficiencies.
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It's not an efficiency if it increases consumer costs or decreases value proposition.
 
nelwa said:
Even though this might not really affect me, it seems like cellc is getting a lot of negative publicity the last couple of months...
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Yeah, my post was deleted from that thread for some reason but I basically said the same thing .. I have 2 contracts ready for porting to CellC but I'm quite hesitant after the latest publicity.

Seems they used their lower rates to bring in the numbers, but now they're hooked the extraction of (sometimes hidden) revenue from those extra subscribers starts.

With smaller data bundles, skyrocketing OOB rates and now hidden data billing increments, what really differentiates them from the others when everyone offers lower call rates nowadays?
 
To explain increasing the billable unit, the easiest analogy is like going from per second billing to per minute billing.

Your data usages gets deducted in chunks of 25KB and if you use less, the rest is forfeited. If your device drops and re-establish the connection many times a day and the transactions between those drops are less than 25K, you'll see the issue described in the relevant thread. Some phones will drop a data connection for reasons other than just a general network loss, for example receiving a SMS.

AFAIK, VC uses as small as possible a unit, for sure not 25K, less than 5.
 
jannievanzyl said:
To explain increasing the billable unit, the easiest analogy is like going from per second billing to per minute billing.

Your data usages gets deducted in chunks of 25KB and if you use less, the rest is forfeited. If your device drops and re-establish the connection many times a day and the transactions between those drops are less than 25K, you'll see the issue described in the relevant thread. Some phones will drop a data connection for reasons other than just a general network loss, for example receiving a SMS.

AFAIK, VC uses as small as possible a unit, for sure not 25K, less than 5.
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Reason CellC did this was for the minimum charge be be higher. Instead of paying lets say R 0.01 per Whatsapp, you will now be billed R 0.04 per message or something like that. Very sneaky way to increase your revenue without notifying the clients. Very very dodgy business practice right there. I would run for the hills.
 
Not impressed.

Ah well, will monitor my data usage, and will switch over to mifi (telkom mobile) if neccessary. Not going to top up.
 
If the mybb forum user didn't pick it up, I firmly believe Cell C wouldn't have said a thing.
 
jannievanzyl said:
To explain increasing the billable unit, the easiest analogy is like going from per second billing to per minute billing.

Your data usages gets deducted in chunks of 25KB and if you use less, the rest is forfeited. If your device drops and re-establish the connection many times a day and the transactions between those drops are less than 25K, you'll see the issue described in the relevant thread. Some phones will drop a data connection for reasons other than just a general network loss, for example receiving a SMS.

AFAIK, VC uses as small as possible a unit, for sure not 25K, less than 5.
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Thanks, Jannie.

Now I wonder what billing unit MTN and TM use?

PS: you missed an interesting talk this morning.
 
ginggs said:
Thanks, Jannie.

Now I wonder what billing unit MTN and TM use?

PS: you missed an interesting talk this morning.
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From when I worked there still it was minimum R 0.01 per connection. You can't charge less. So it would depent on the rate. The lower the rate the more data you would get per minimum connection. However, I left a few yours ago so no idea if that still applies.
 
This is like a salami attack take a little bit from everybody and it adds up to thousands of Rands.

So say I lost a connection after using only 9kb I lose 16 kb.

Let's say a MB is 1024kb and a MB cost 15c.
If you lost 16kb after each small session. It would translate to 0.234375c a session.
If this happened 5 times a day you would lose 1.171875c each day.
Which is about 35c a month.

Well thats probably not to bad because with even R1 you can't really buy anything these days.
 
ginggs said:
If you read in the thread, you'll see it is actually happening 20 to 120 times a day.

Except that the increase in usage can take you out of bundle and then it is R2.00 per MB.
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We should not let this fly tbh. Is there no one who can take up this cause? ICASA? NCA? somebody? This is really very underhanded and not good business practice.
 
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