[Constructive] Suggestions for Vodacom: Data Packages & Bundles

ToxicBunny said:
Hi guys,

New to this forum at least as I only got my contract yesterday. I am really liking the idea of the price reductions, but just a suggestion maybe, what about making connections to vodacoms own smtp/pop servers free or included at a nominal cost for 3g contracts. That would at least alleviate some cost for the customers and hopefully wouldn't cost too much for vodacom to implement as the servers should be on their own backbone.

From a personal point of view, the idea of peak and non-peak data rates is very appealing as I'll be using my 3g connection mostly after hours as I have a permanent internet connection in the office, not the i'm in the office much but hey.. :)..

Something else that just occured to me, and as its something i'm good at i haven't thought through all the technical details, but when and if vodacom were to launch a wimax network, packages that can roam between the 3g and the wimax networks at will would also be really interesting and useful... For me, working in the IT industry as I do the one thing that always frustrates me is having to hop between networks, if something could make that completely seamless, and even leave me with one bill for it at the end of the month, hell i'd be happy... as long as the bill wasn't too excessive.

anyway, my 10 or 15c worth considering the cost of bandwidth atm.. :cool:
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Thanks for the ideas. Some comments:

SMTP (i.e. sending mail) is free, or at least you don't pay for the server, only the data.

With some of the data contracts (500Mb and up), you get a free mail account. For the smaller packages, it's at a nominal monthly charge, R29/month, I believe.

UMA, or the ability to switch between different bearer networks is on its way, pretty much as you described.

I recently played with a Nokia phone that can switch a voice call seamlessly between WiFi and GSM.
 
vodacom3g said:
SMTP (i.e. sending mail) is free, or at least you don't pay for the server, only the data.
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They don't tell you this when advertising their mail. Marketing guys didn't want us to know. Where can we get more info on how to use it.
 
Prometheus said:
They don't tell you this when advertising their mail. Marketing guys didn't want us to know. Where can we get more info on how to use it.
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Maybe some clarity is required.

When sending mail over the Vodacom data network, you need an outgoing mail server. This server uses SMTP to send the mail. Vodacom provides such a server, wait for it!, called smtp.vodacom.co.za.

You must already have a mail account somewhere else.

To have your own mail address and mailbox, you need to be configured on some POP3 server. Vodacom provides this via the vodamail accounts and if you have a data contract, you get one for free, at least from the 500M contracts up.

Have a look here: http://www.vodacom.co.za/services/personal_email.jsp
 
vodacom3g said:
Thanks for the ideas. Some comments:

SMTP (i.e. sending mail) is free, or at least you don't pay for the server, only the data.

With some of the data contracts (500Mb and up), you get a free mail account. For the smaller packages, it's at a nominal monthly charge, R29/month, I believe.

I recently played with a Nokia phone that can switch a voice call seamlessly between WiFi and GSM.
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Well that nokia phone sounds pretty good, hopefully vodacom will come up with a way to have a wifi voip network that we can all use, or maybe use our own networks and have access to voip servers from vodacom... again haven't thought through the technical aspects of that.

as for the smtp stuff, where I'm more pointing to or at least thinking of, is in terms of the data being free... so that sending mail or maybe even sending and receiving mail from the vodacom mail account is free in all respects and doesn't eat into the monthly bandwidth allowance. I spose this kind of goes hand in hand with the idea of content on vodacom's local network being free, and then vodacom hosting some interesting content, and software that would be free to get access to.
 
I know how e-mail works, what I don't understand is this:
"You must already have a mail account somewhere else."

If I had a mail account somewhere else I would use that accounts SMTP server, e.g. smtp.yahoo.com. That HSDPA card with the rocket exhaust looks good btw :D
 
Prometheus said:
If I had a mail account somewhere else I would use that accounts SMTP server, e.g. smtp.yahoo.com.
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Not always.

Most mail servers won't accept mail from a bearer network that's not part of their own network setup. You have two options around this:

1) A SMTP server with authentication - In this case your mail provider will authenticate you before accepting your mail for delivery. A large number of mail providers do NOT provide this, leading to the second option.

2) The company providing the bearer (internet connection), Vodacom in this case, provides you with a SMTP relay. This server will accept and forward your mail, irrespective of who your mail provider is. In the case of Vodacom it's smtp.vodacom.co.za
 
This is another idea I've just had, not that its really going to affect the pricing in any way. I currently have 2 vodacom contracts and obviously now 2 phone numbers because of the 3g account. It would be very useful if vodacom could link the 2 accounts in some way so that if i logged into vodacom4me with my cellphone number i could get access to the details of the 3g account and maybe even vice versa (though i don't know if i'll ever remember my 3g cell phone number)....

Just on a complete side issue, Vodacom has to be pretty much the best cellphone company around... The only issues I've ever had (bar the incident recently with no coverage due to some technical fault) have been with the franchises like teljoy, they take great pleasure in stuffing me around and then having me throw my toys out the cot in their shop..... but anyway.... as i said its off topic...
 
ToxicBunny said:
as for the smtp stuff, where I'm more pointing to or at least thinking of, is in terms of the data being free... so that sending mail or maybe even sending and receiving mail from the vodacom mail account is free in all respects and doesn't eat into the monthly bandwidth allowance. I spose this kind of goes hand in hand with the idea of content on vodacom's local network being free, and then vodacom hosting some interesting content, and software that would be free to get access to.
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A bit like Blackberry, where you pay a fixed monthly amount for all e-mail, irrespective of amount of data used?
 
vodacom3g said:
A bit like Blackberry, where you pay a fixed monthly amount for all e-mail, irrespective of amount of data used?
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yeah i'd go pretty much with saying exactly like blackberry, but say on certain 3g accounts (like the 500 and above) where its an added bonus at no extra cost to the 3g account. It would make my new 3g connection even more attractive and cost effective to me then.
 
This is just another idea in terms of a bundle, or a package that may be interesting to look at. Its not an idea that would necessarily benefit most people, I am looking at it more from a students point of view, considering I used to work at an IT department at one of the local universities and it always disappointed me as to how much technologies like 3g could be used to enrich the teaching environment or just to make learning more location independant.

I am thinking somewhere along the lines of an APN that connects to universities networks and students can access the data on the local network of a university or universities could join and post data to the network of that apn (this is assuming I have the right idea about apn's)... and the students would pay a fee every month or it could be billed through to the university who then attach it to their student fees or something along those lines...

I always wanted to be able to access my course work from home, then I wouldn't have had to trek the distance to varsity to sit down for one or 2 lectures in a day....

or maybe a concept similar to mweb's portal, with a whole lot of valuable information and resources on it like Encyclopedia britannica etc etc that is available, that doesn't come off the monthly data bundle.

Obviously feel free to shoot me down for ideas that aren't feasible, or just plain stupid, but I for one want to be involved in some small way in making 3g a much better product because ultimately I'll benefit from that.
 
Basically you want a dedicated APN that routes directly into the campus network?

A lot of corporates have exactly this setup for their staff, extending their own network across a 'private' 3G network, via their own APN.

I know some of the universities are looking into this.

Keep the ideas coming!
 
Basically that was what I was thinking about. Kind of encouraging to see that some corporates have taken to the idea like that. Pity that I don't work for them... but hey... i can dream.. :)...

also encouraging to know that some universities are looking at the idea, though I can pretty much guess that the one or two that I am thinking of specifically aren't. 1 of them because Vodacom refuse to deal with them. The other because its IT infrastructure is so horribly fragmented and stone age that I doubt their IT dept even knows about 3g.

This country could make such great use of 3g, and it could definately be one of those great technologies that brings this country kicking and screaming into the 21st century, if only there could be a way to make it more affordable to the masses.
 
You guys make it sound so difficult to get a e-mail address. Why don't you just get a free gmail account with over 2.7GB of space. You don't need any smtp or pop settings and you can use it with any internet account.

As long as you can browse the internet you can send and receive e-mail.
 
Piesang, its not difficult to get an email address at all. I have 2 gmail accounts and multiple other ones lying all over the place. What I'm talking about and I'm sure it would make a whole lot of people very happy, is the one that vodacom supply with certain 3g accounts not coming off your monthly data allowance, thereby making email completely free. of course by doing that email could be opened up to certain types of abuse, but yeah.... it would definately help my monthly allowance not to have to worry about any email i'm sending and receiving on one account.....
 
I use my gmail account on my Jasjar via GPRS because MTN doesn't have 3G coverage where I live (pathetic that is). I don't see why I should use another e-mail account. It almost cost me nothing. Definitely much cheaper than the R20+ it cost for a e-mail address from Vodacom.
 
Piesang said:
I use my gmail account on my Jasjar via GPRS because MTN doesn't have 3G coverage where I live (pathetic that is). I don't see why I should use another e-mail account. It almost cost me nothing. Definitely much cheaper than the R20+ it cost for a e-mail address from Vodacom.
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The point is not how much it cost's you. Some people receive so much mail that it depletes their data bundles. They would appreciate only paying R20+ for email and use their data bundle for something else or take out a lower data bundle. Some people will benefit others won't, but no one wants to force you to use such a service. The more options the better.
 
This is just another idea in terms of offerings that Vodacom could provide us with.

Something along the lines of us buying more data at a much lower rate in once off bundles. So like instead of paying R2 per meg, we can buy bundles of 100mb or something, just once off at a much lower rate. I do know this would play absolute havoc with billing systems but hey.. we're the clients...things should just work.. :)
 
ToxicBunny said:
Something along the lines of us buying more data at a much lower rate in once off bundles. So like instead of paying R2 per meg, we can buy bundles of 100mb or something, just once off at a much lower rate. I do know this would play absolute havoc with billing systems but hey.. we're the clients...things should just work.. :)
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Hasn't this been in the pipeline for ages already (billing system problems), everybody has been waiting for it :confused:, but I have to ask what's your idea of once?
 
well my idea of once, would be for example, on the 20th of the month i find that I've exhausted my monthly bundle, and instead of getting charged R2 per mb after that, I can buy in "bulk" as it were for a lower rate, just for that month.....

I dunno if that makes sense, but yeah.
 
That's exactly what I suggested in a previous post. Just to clarify on this. You should be able to buy a bundle without it expiring in for instance a month. If that is not the case then people will deliberately buy less than what they need in order to avoid this loss. You should also be able to buy unlimited bundles if you want to. If both of these issues are not addressed people will continue to buy whatever amount of bundles they need by simply getting more SIM cards like they are doing now on MTN's network. MTN will soon run out of phone numbers.

As consumers we should force Vodacom to do this, so please if they don't implement this strategy then get yourself more SIM cards. They are already struggling with a shortage of numbers and they have to go through an application process to get a new number range so they would be the ones losing out and squealing at the end of the day.
 
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