Consumers score with 99% discounts

Vodacom confirms it makes a loss on 99% Yebo4Less discounted calls
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The problem is that it never hits 99%.

At the moment (~2 am in the morning) the discount is 90%. That is good...but I doubt people will be chuffed if I call them at 2 am. During the day its usually <10% in the suburbs and 0% in the CBD.

The other thing is that if the base rate is R2.89 and the interconnect rate is R1.25....then they start making a loss @ 57% discount...and the off-network discount is limited to 60%. So even if one calls an MTN number at 2am the loss is 9c/minute. I doubt that will make a dent in VCs profit.

[-]Consumers[/-] Insomniacs score with 99% discounts
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There, I fixed it.

/me thinks the Staff writer forgot about the 60% limit on off-network.
 
HUH?? dude i think you read it wrong..

Base charge meant without any discount %, because i have made a few 1/2hr calls when it launched(earlier the yr.. tho off net was max 65%) for < R1.50 (on-net) :D

2ndly.. it depends on where you are, e.g. When i use to be at uct every night the month it launched by like 22h00 it use to hit 99% and then word got around and then 3 or 4 weeks later it was much later.

What we need tho is nice data app you can use with mxit/gtalk etc that check rates on both ends prior to making the call ..so you know who must phone whom ;)
 
Vodacom also confirmed that the cost of the full call would be discounted by percentage when the call was made. This means that a Yebo4Less subscriber can theoretically speak for hours at a price of less then 3c per minute if they are lucky enough to hit the 99% discounted rate.
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I am sure they will simply drop such calls when the network utilisation hits a certain level.
 
Im not happy at all, last week i show my friend my y4l discount and it was 0% to yoda and 0% to other. How funny is that? If thats the case then why are they havin discount at all?
 
I won't weep for them. They make enough money.

They are probably hoping that everyone will move to Vodacom to get the discount rate and so most of the calls will be on their own network where they probably won't lose money...

I also doubt the vast majority of people are going to phone at 12 at night...
 
With regards to the inter-connect fees being a loss to Vodacom, I don't really see this as true since they "pay" the R1.25 on outgoing calls but receive that amount from the other networks for incoming calls.

So depending on the number of calls in and out, fees paid out could be only 10% of the inter-connect fee charged to customers (number of calls out > number of calls in) or in some cases might be a net amount received (number of calls in > number of calls out).
 
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This very high discount is only expected to occur during times when the network is particularly quiet
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and guess who decides on how quiet the network is? :eek:
 
So the first salvo have been fired.

Will be interesting to see what MTN and CellC's reaction will be. (And Neotel and Telkom as well).
 
risingtide said:
Vodacom also confirmed that the cost of the full call would be discounted by percentage when the call was made. This means that a Yebo4Less subscriber can theoretically speak for hours at a price of less then 3c per minute if they are lucky enough to hit the 99% discounted rate.
Click to expand...
I am sure they will simply drop such calls when the network utilisation hits a certain level.
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I don't know if this is still true, but Vodacom (and MTN?) used to drop calls once the call's duration reaches 1 hour anyways.
 
This is the same company that furthers the political agenda of the ruling party... thanks, but no thanks.
 
No loss to VC

If you were on CPS before all offpeak calls were just over a rand a min, now most of the time you are paying 1.50 a min, so they are making way more when people call, and ya who is awake at 2 in the morning to call other people. Just cleaver marketing nothing more:sick:
 
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