Cheaper 3G Prices - Rep?

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SFW007 said:
Most of the guys complaining about 3G prices are people using it as if is a fixed line device. Vodacom currently does not have a fixed line service and so it is unfair to compare ADSL to 3G. We need to compare apples with apples.
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I have had this same debate on the forum before the arrival of uncapped and at that time if you compared all the costs (line rental, ADSL, service and bandwidth) 3G and ADSL actually compared very well, especially in the low usage range 1-5GB. Which is probably fine for a lot of people. However there has to be some "premium" for being mobile. For ADSL Telkom only need to ensure capacity for X users in Y location. Mobile operators need to ensure they have extra capacity everywhere to accommodate people being mobile.

The problem we have at the moment is that ADSL resellers have leveraged Seacom to reduce the cost of bandwidth while Vodacom, rather than using it to supplement their data and reduce costs, are only using it for redundancy to SAT3 (Not sure what MTN are doing with it). What is very interesting is this whole scenario is that Vodacom Business announced a large reduction in costs to their customers a while ago and this reduction was achieved using Seacom. Vodacom Business however also supply the bandwidth for Vodacom's 3G network and we all know where we stand with that.

While ADSL != 3G before there was always an "acceptable" premium associated with the cost of mobile data so you could weigh up if the extra cost of mobility was worth it over a fixed line. With the price gap the size that it currently is that premium no longer comes at an acceptable price, so while no one should be expecting 3G prices to match that of ADSL, they certainly need to be adjusted within the range they were before.
 
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So there is change in data prices. 93c per mb on the 30mb data bundle vs MTN R10 /R1 then R1 out of bundle rate

I still see Telkom Mobile's 500mb for R150 as a worth while decision. Thing is that ADSL might be getting lower but most people are going out and buying HSDPA modems ,takes the cost out-of rental of a copper line and you are free in terms of choice of ISP


Vodacom: You guys need to go uncapped!
Believe or not people are forking out the R50 bucks,have some friends who I only see after days :D haha!
 
I was just wondering whether Vodafone's ownership/stake in Vodacom has anything to do with pricing.
Being listed on the stock exchange (NYSE/Nasdaq) obviously means return on investment. What do they get out of South African Vodacom once the profits are converted? Peanuts? Isn't this the reason why VC is dry humping/screwing us? MTN don't have an excuse except that they have to follow competition commission rules which means they can't drastically undercut VC . That's why they p u s s yfoot around "agreed upon" price fixes. :( :sick: :twisted:
 
morkhans said:
... However there has to be some "premium" for being mobile. For ADSL Telkom only need to ensure capacity for X users in Y location. Mobile operators need to ensure they have extra capacity everywhere to accommodate people being mobile.
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I do not agree that there has to be a "premium" on being mobile. A fixed line has a higher installation cost that has to be recovered. It is probably more expensive to maintain too. Anyway, the cost of operating 3G vs ADSL is only one factor. More important is the value to users. I think ADSL and 3G are more or less of equal value. With 3G you get mobility. With ADSL you get reliability.

For me, personally, reliability is more important - something that I have come to appreciate ever since I changed to ADSL almost a year ago. So I will choose ADSL even if 3G was significantly cheaper.
 
J0n0 said:
MWeb Uncapped incl Adsl Line rental: R 349.00
Telkom line rental R 135.00

Total costs R 484.00

Vodacom:
MyGig 20 (Standard) R3,899.00

Yes sure adsl seems on par with pricing, but they charge R 29 per gig at all times and you dont pay rental each time you top up.

Let me pay rental on the tower or rental for having access to the 3g network, and let me top up at cheaper rates than R 289.00 for 1Gb. And i'll stop complaining.
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Yes, I agree, let's pay standard line rental, for access to the Vodacom Network, per "speed package" just like with ADSL and then let's start talking price per GB.

At least that is a structure unlike at the moment where everybody is confused.

In short: Let's start comparing apples with apples just like VodacomData, himself, has suggested;)
 
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SFW007 said:
No matter what you say dude someone will always have one up on this board.

again :

Most of the guys complaining about 3G prices are people using it as if is a fixed line device. Vodacom currently does not have a fixed line service and so it is unfair to compare ADSL to 3G. We need to compare apples with apples.
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The fact is there are a huge proportion of 3G users who don't need mobility, myself included, but signed up due to 1GB 3G data being cheaper than 1GB ADSL data including line rental at the time. In the last 6-8 months the price of ADSL has dropped to a level where using more than 1GB per month is actually not that costly. In fact, we can now get uncapped ADSL for about R500 and get about 30GB easily. Whereas with Vodacom we'd get 2-3GB and the price of each additional GB is too much so we restrict our usage. Vodacom is going to lose all the users like me who don't need mobility and signed up at the time because it was reasonable. My contract ends this month :) Finally will be "Free" and not "dom".
 
SaiyanZ said:
The fact is there are a huge proportion of 3G users who don't need mobility, myself included, but signed up due to 1GB 3G data being cheaper than 1GB ADSL data including line rental at the time. In the last 6-8 months the price of ADSL has dropped to a level where using more than 1GB per month is actually not that costly. In fact, we can now get uncapped ADSL for about R500 and get about 30GB easily. Whereas with Vodacom we'd get 2-3GB and the price of each additional GB is too much so we restrict our usage. Vodacom is going to lose all the users like me who don't need mobility and signed up at the time because it was reasonable. My contract ends this month :) Finally will be "Free" and not "dom".
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Well said, that sums it up.
 
+1 to SaiyanZ, I too, got 3G because it was reasonable 2 years ago
 
Keeper said:
Vodacom - I Would like anyone at Vodacom to please answer me this 1 single question.

What good is 14mb/s if we pay close to R289 per Gig? At full speed downloading, it will run out after 9.5 minutes. :confused:

14Mbs / 8 bits = 1.75MBs.
1Gig / 1.75MBs = 571 Seconds
571 seconds / 60 = 9.5 Minutes

Vodacom: R300 for 9 Minutes and 30 seconds of Internet. Wow!


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And this ladies and gentleman, is your IN-Bundle Prices. after that first 10 minutes of internet you will be paying over R2,00 per second, so make sure you don't go over!
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Why the heck would you be downloading at full speed all the time? You modem is not running at FULL SPEED all the time it is connected to the internet! WTF!!
 
nuyork said:
Why the heck would you be downloading at full speed all the time? You modem is not running at FULL SPEED all the time it is connected to the internet! WTF!!
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:erm: When you download a large file it does run FULL SPEED all the time? When you watch a Youtube video it buffers the video in the background at FULL SPEED all the time? Or do you mean one should half your download speed with the download manager? WTF!!!!??? :p
 
nuyork said:
Why the heck would you be downloading at full speed all the time? You modem is not running at FULL SPEED all the time it is connected to the internet! WTF!!
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It only needs to run close to full speed for 10 minutes or so, not "all the time" anyway.

when they promised 3.6mbps I got very close to 3.6mbps.
at 3:45 in the morning almost anyone can get good speeds, it's not impossible.

anyway, it was just a comparison and I said "At full speed downloading".
sure you don't get that speed 24/7 and there are always error redundancy bandwidth, but the math is there.
 
Ok, lets make this fair then.

lets say you download and it runs at only half speed then - around 7mbs?

20 minutes of Internet for R300.


Do you seriously not see anything wrong with this picture?

for R50 more you can get uncapped Internet and have over 44000 minutes of internet and also download 100 Gigs instead of just 1.


It's nice that it's wireless and all, but at that price?


And i'm not even talking about your Out-of-bundle costs when you go over that 1GB, After 20 minutes of downloading.
 
Im just wondering if the powers that be have been reading through this thread yet.....

It has drama, suspense,far fetched story lines.......

I wanna sell this to the makers of The Days Of Our Lives.

Keeper will of course be the Executive producer/ and creator:p.
 
Yes what was that... MORE CAP!

So after 5 months of phoning Vodacom for a 3G antenna I had finally given up and decided it was time to get out of this
contract.

Maybe just maybe on the basis that Vodacom had ignored my antenna request and signal or the lack of it was making the
connection unusable,which it was, would allow me to cancel the contract without a penalty.

Turns out that I actually did have an argument and to my surprise Vodacom appeared to take it quite seriously, they apologized
for "ignoring" my request and would come by today to install my antenna. Well after 5 months you can understand that I was not exactly optimistic. :whistle:

Well today came and at 12:00 Vodacom actual came and installed my antenna, well after me explaining to the techie how to plug the antenna into the B970 router. :sigh:

Well to sum every thing up my signal has improved drastically (after remembering to switch that little switch to external on the router).

But to no surprise though my signal is great, throughput is still a problem. i.e: device states connect yet no net*.
*This has been an ongoing problem.

So as a summary when my connection works I get great speeds. YAY now I can run through my 3GB cap even quicker.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/804956317.png Don't exactly know what to make of that! :wtf:

19.25 / 8 = 2.40MB/s
3000 / 2.40 = 1250s / 60 = 20.83min ..::Theoretically::..

VODACOM CAN YOU PLEASE WAKE UP AND REDUCE THE PRICE PER/GIG!!:twisted::sick::mad:
 
I just saw that Modern Warfare 2 is available to download for FREE this weekend!!!! Oh wait, how much is it going to cost me, hm... 10GB is around R2000 right? Geez, I could buy 3 copies of that game for that price.
 
Here's the kind of pricing I would like to see from Vodacom

Here's the kind of pricing I would like to see from Vodacom for them to actually to be "competing" and make an impact. i think it's quite realistic and best part of all is it'll undercut Telkom's pricing for the lower band-with usage population. The only way Telkom would be able to fight back is to do something about their line rental + phone rental which would benefit everyone.
If they don't Vodacom will score a few ADSL and even wireless users.

600 MB (Standard) R149.00
MyGig 1.2 (Standard) R249.00
MyGig 2.3 (Standard) R349.00
MyGig 3 (Standard) R449.00
MyGig 5(Standard) R749.00

I can dream can't I...
 
HideInLight said:
Here's the kind of pricing I would like to see from Vodacom for them to actually to be "competing" and make an impact. i think it's quite realistic and best part of all is it'll undercut Telkom's pricing for the lower band-with usage population. The only way Telkom would be able to fight back is to do something about their line rental + phone rental which would benefit everyone.
If they don't Vodacom will score a few ADSL and even wireless users.

600 MB (Standard) R149.00
MyGig 1.2 (Standard) R249.00
MyGig 2.3 (Standard) R349.00
MyGig 3 (Standard) R449.00
MyGig 5(Standard) R749.00

I can dream can't I...
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I dont really believe in dreams but i can assure you those 3G Prices are a reality before 2010 ends and maybe even lower.

So wait for it , as you know by now ALL South African Bandwith has been provisioned for the Visitors for the 2010 WC

No price reductions just yet but it is coming like a Tsumani.

ADSL has seen the benefits already but that is through SEACOM only wait for the rest.

DXL - Team
 
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