"Free" Vodacom Internet!

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Prometheus said:
Did I say anything to the contrary here? :confused: I never said they took a loss on data. I do know that some users use more data cost based than what they actually pay Vodacom and it's those users which are a problem. I actually loaded some airtime once in a while and used it up to pay for the cost of the vlive data so anyone calling me an abuser doesn't make me feel guilty. This was before Virgin however and if Vodacom stops the free vlive internet I wouldn't have any incentive to stay with them anymore. If only these companies were to charge a realistic price for data we wouldn't have this problem as they could then even charge for the vlive portal without making too many people angry. I don't expect this to happen in SA though. :rolleyes:

I don't get what his postal/email address and bank details have to do with the data billing on his account. :confused:
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Dont get me wrong here. I am not taking anyone on, i also used the free web when i ran out, BUT i want to know the numbers... how much free data was ever transmitted
 
74466 said:
Dont get me wrong here. I am not taking anyone on, i also used the free web when i ran out, BUT i want to know the numbers... how much free data was ever transmitted
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I got the impression you were thinking I was saying they lost due to the free net which I was not. Before I start another flame war here over misread posts. I also used that free net, but only for browsing and some small downloads, but being a loyal Vodacom customer being ripped off for years I think I more than payed them back for it not to mention they knew about the 'hole' and didn't do anything about it. :cool:
 
that also happened to me when i upgraded on my family top-up. im not complaining or anything. but can you imagine how much money vodacom could make if they set up a product whereby you pay something like R50 a month for (maybe a voucher) unlimited uncapped acces across all bandwidths for prepaid/top-up cellphone users... they would make a killing.
 
Not a cent. Like I said, it happened to other people aswell. Then all of the sudden, it started charging R2 per mb. I know of people that downloaded well over 50gb for free. They DID use the internet apn. That's the strange part.

But like you said, it's basically a prepaid contract, so they can't send him a bill for it.
 
Family Top-Up is infact a contract package. For R135 a month, eg, you get R135 air time, rocket science, and after that you have to "top up" to continue utilising the network. You never see this "top-up" air time on your monthly statements.
 
internaut said:
Family Top-Up is infact a contract package. For R135 a month, eg, you get R135 air time, rocket science, and after that you have to "top up" to continue utilising the network. You never see this "top-up" air time on your monthly statements.
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It is actually a prepaid account at contract rates. If it were a contract it would be postpaid.
 
Today i went on the net on my nokia 6680 and there was no deduction on my airtime im on a family top up contract.So seems i have still have free internet.Vodacom may not charge me more than R135 / month.I check my contract papers so they may not charge me for the time i spent on the net if my airtime is not deducted .[/QUOTE]
 
ic said:
Ok, I think I understand now, but just to check, we are talking about 25 Giga-Bytes?, which would be a bill of thousands of rands at R2.00/MB on Family Topup, which AFAIK is a pre-paid product...

The only scenarios I can think of that would make this possible, are
  • if your brother's connection never dropped once while he was downloading that 25GB; or
  • your brother had several thousand rands worth of pre-paid credit on his Family Topup pre-paid account; or
  • somehow your brother's Family Topup pre-paid was in reality a post-paid contract - maybe the retail outlet screwed up when activating the Family Topup account; or
  • your brother didn't think he was using the VLive APN, but actually was; or
  • your brother was dowloading from a bandwidth twilight zone :eek:
How much did he endup being billed for the 25GB?
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Or for some reason the Vodacom billings systems never knew about this sim....

We did pick up a few of these around July and corrected them. Don't have the details on how it came about, so can't sell it, sorry!
 
You guys have answered most of your own questions;

1) Using a PC (in most cases) were detected and stopped. But certain configurations could not be detected. The intention was to allow phone browsing, not massive downloads.

2) Don't confuse logging data usage with billing for it.

3) The 'hole' was not 'plugged' as a reaction to anything, that would have been easy, as explained. The new systems only (at long last) came on-line now.

4) They're still be fine-tuned so might switch in an out.

5) I don't think Vodacom will publish any numbers, this is not normally done. But I'll try to give an indication if I see any numbers.

6) Family Top-Up is sold as a contract but is managed and billed as pre-paid.

7) Giving free services will attract lots of customers, but how do you fund such a venture?

Did I miss anything?
 
Not free free...like someone else earlier posted,say you pay R50 (or some low fixed amount) and get 'uncapped' gprs or edge subject to a fair usage policy thats sensible no? If I was ceo of vodacom I'd make sure these forumites get what they want but sigh....im not
 
feo said:
Not free free...like someone else earlier posted,say you pay R50 (or some low fixed amount) and get 'uncapped' gprs or edge subject to a fair usage policy thats sensible no? If I was ceo of vodacom I'd make sure these forumites get what they want but sigh....im not
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We're constantly looking how to create new products and a fixed-fee, fair-usage option is one of them.
 
Vlive internet

So vodacom3g i can use the internet for browzing the net and not to feel bad for getting free internet i use only about 50 mb per month.Is it true that vodacom cant charge me more than R135 + my clip per month on a family top up contract
 
Well I'll be blunt and say whenever these products come out they're always overpriced so you guys are losing out on a large chunk of consumers. If just once Voda could offer something like fair-usage uncapped GPRS/EDGE for example for under R100 then I'm sure you'd steal back a lot of those people who moved over to Virgin...but it's good to know you guys are working on fair-usage options. Use Britain as your role-model...their mobile offerings have fair-usage stamped all over them
 
internaut said:
Ok, what I understand about contract is, that you are "bound" for 24 months with a "fixed" rate which is what the Family Top-up is. :confused:
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From what I understand it works like a prepaid account where you get a prepay balance on your account per month and have to recharge using vouchers to use more. You get charged at contract rates and have to sign a contract. It's marketed as a prepaid solution however so it might depend on your criteria for contracts. I think it's a prepaid account with a lock-in and in return you get contract rates and nothing more.
 
@V3G

Okay, could you find out for us, as i may be very wrong here, BUT if i am right we could all benifit.

Vodacom (WITH VODAFONE AS PARTNER) buys all their bandwidth and intl calls etc from telkom right...

Now this part i am not too sure of, but i take it that a company like vodafone, them being vodafone, would own some amount of sattelites, so if this is correct, wont it be possible for them to bypass telkom, and send/recieve international bandwidth via sattelite routing it through the UK networks, which in turn would bring vodacom bandwidth prices down?
 
feo said:
Not free free...like someone else earlier posted,say you pay R50 (or some low fixed amount) and get 'uncapped' gprs or edge subject to a fair usage policy thats sensible no? If I was ceo of vodacom I'd make sure these forumites get what they want but sigh....im not
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Can someone please tell me what precisely a "fair usage policy" means :confused: :o
 
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