Cell C's highs and lows

Ockie said:
Yeah well, your sh*t network is a concern too.
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without the financials house in order there is very little he can do about that ;)

Unfortunately what the article - and so many like it - fail to convey is the extent to which CellC has become entirely dependent upon regulatory favour and the regulatory landscape is fully captured.
 
Paul Hjul said:
without the financials house in order there is very little he can do about that ;)

Unfortunately what the article - and so many like it - fail to convey is the extent to which CellC has become entirely dependent upon regulatory favour and the regulatory landscape is fully captured.
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They received a huge cash injection from Oger a while ago if I am not mistaken.

My opinion is that if your network is sh*t and you cant provide a usable service for which your customers are paying, then you will not catch up to your competition, no matter what you do. Sure, you will gain some low end spenders that recharges with R5.00 airtime here and there, but loose the ones that spends large amounts or wants contracts are going to get weary and your reputation will follow you.
 
Ockie said:
They received a huge cash injection from Oger a while ago if I am not mistaken.

My opinion is that if your network is sh*t and you cant provide a usable service for which your customers are paying, then you will not catch up to your competition, no matter what you do. Sure, you will gain some low end spenders that recharges with R5.00 airtime here and there, but loose the ones that spends large amounts or wants contracts are going to get weary and your reputation will follow you.
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Huge cash injection is a relative term. End of the day, they are burning through cash faster than they are earning it.
 
Ockie said:
They received a huge cash injection from Oger a while ago if I am not mistaken.

My opinion is that if your network is sh*t and you cant provide a usable service for which your customers are paying, then you will not catch up to your competition, no matter what you do. Sure, you will gain some low end spenders that recharges with R5.00 airtime here and there, but loose the ones that spends large amounts or wants contracts are going to get weary and your reputation will follow you.
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A cash injection that is undoubtedly part of an approach from Oger (and Saudi Telecoms) to tie up MTN (and to a lesser extent Vodafone) revenue in Southern Africa
Therefore a line of credit exclusively available to fight (and scrape using) the CTR issue rather than one which is part of an infrastructure development plan.
 
Origin248 said:
Huge cash injection is a relative term. End of the day, they are burning through cash faster than they are earning it.
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This has been claimed repeatedly - but never actually substantiated
without favourable CTRs it is undoubtedly the case but if it was true with the CTRs that are currently running CellC would have been out of business months ago - as predicted by the people first claiming that they are burning their cash faster than they can acquire cash
 
Keep treating your customers like you do and you will run the company to the ground. Was a huge Cell C fan but due to their recent behavior and weakening network, I truly can't wait for my contract to expire so I can go somewhere else.

Vodacom showed me that when you pay a little more, you get a far superior product.
 
I work for Cell C and since this K**T came into power **** has gone downhill very quickly.
Store owners are treated like **** and trust me its not only the customers that are suffering.
This guy is a damn crook and operates mafia style.
I cant wait for the day he gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar...
 
I can't remember in which thread, but I understand they were also burned by going with Hauwei, they did not realise all the additional hidden costs that would need to be added as the subscriber base grew. I would love to get some clarity on this if anyone has some inside info.

What I want to know know is are they serious about simplification, because their current trend is moving to be more complicated than the big boy contracts.

Then what is the plan for LTE, i.e. when and where. Add how they plan to manage the spectrum between 3G and LTE.

One simple thing would be allow people to combine products e.g. the straight up package + the R69 1GB data deal. boom, winning combo. Drop all the funny special deals that make things confusing.
 
surely the whole American Tower Company route would have been a more OPEX heavy route which makes cash a bigger problem ...
 
So he wants to simplify the offering that he has sent so much effort complicating?

Just say things that people want to hear
 
Dos Santos - Lows of Cell-C

Seems to me that since Dos Santos took over, Cell-C has lost it's charm.
Under Dos Santos, Cell-C has been steadily increasing it's costs

Data cost increases - 2GB data bundle was R199, now R245 (23% increase)
http://mybroadband.co.za/news/cellular/116061-new-cell-c-data-prices-released.html

Change to out of bundle data rates - 99c (was same as in bundle rate) (560% increase)
http://mybroadband.co.za/news/cellular/100830-cell-c-hikes-oob-data-prices-by-560.html

Cell C increased its SIM & connection fee from R114 to R195 (71% increase)
http://mybroadband.co.za/news/cellular/109926-cell-c-hikes-contract-setup-fees-by-71.html

Data billing increment increased from 5kb to 25kb (400% increase)
http://mybroadband.co.za/news/cellular/104111-cell-c-data-billing-increment-change.html

Globally telecommunication costs are getting less - except at Cell-C.

@Dos Santos, what's your explanation for these increases?
 
Cell C's number one priority is sustainability - that is a moral responsibility to shareholders, staff and customers and if they have to raise tariffs to achieve that, it must be done. That hurts me too (with 4 contracts with them).

They need to continue to innovate and differentiate and in this respect there are big opportunities - it is a case of getting face time with the right people at Cell C to share some of these (potentially game changing) ideas. I think AKC was open to looking at these and going a bit further than the standard SA model of promo product and price specials.
 
I think their costs are still ok compared to the likes of VC and MTN but the bigger issue is the network load. I for one am going to move to another operator in Jan when my contract expires because the network coverage and response is just shockingly bad.

They must realize that without a good service , no matter what the pricing, the customers will not stick with them. What's the point of cheaper rates if your calls get dropped and 3G connectivity is poor.
 
Randux said:
Are they still not profitable with so many subscribers?
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I don't get this. When I got my first phone about 15 years ago (when they still only had 083 numbers), I remember the chap at the MTN shop boasting how they had close to 4 million subscribers. Even with such a small number, they still had good coverage and were profitable?
 
It's been said in this thread a few times. Price alone isn't going to keep customers. I like the way they have structured some of their packages and that I buy a certain number of anytime minutes and data.

My major gripe is the incredibly poor network coverage. It's average to good in Joburg, but go out of the region and I struggle. On my last trip out of Joburg I got a sim card for data and accessed Vodacom through a hot spot. That or live without internet access for a week.
 
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