Give me a reason to stay with Vodacom

[Nips]

Since my Vodacom contract is coming up for upgrade, I have been doing some homework to help me decide whether or not to stay with Vodacom. I have compared Vodacom prices with CellC and Telkom on a package that gives at least 100min voice and 1GB of data with a Huawei P9. Here are my results. Anyone that wants to use these numbers please verify for yourself. I beieve them to be accurate but can't be responsible. Some of them are smaller contracts so I have added the cost of OOB airtime to make up the total number of minutes and/or GB. The table below shows the SP, the plan, the monthly cost and the number of voice minutes and the GB's of data. I would love to upgrade now, but can't justify the cost, so can anyone give me any good reasons to stay with Vodacom and upgrade now as opposed to waiting three months and porting out.

SP Plan Cost Minutes GB
Telkom Smartplan150 R 729,00 150 1,3
Telkom Freeme2GB R 618,00 100 2 (+Free Calls to Telkom Mobile and Telkom Landlines)
CellC Pinnacle1 R 719,00 600 1 (Way more minutes than needed. )
CellC Smartchat2GB Topup R 674,00 100 1 (+1GB Nighttime)
Vodacom Smart More Data 2GB R 817,00 100 2
Vodacom Smart Top Up M+ R 768,00 120 1

Edit - No MTN included because I lost patience trying to figure out costs on their website.

 

[Darynv]

Because Vodacom will give you free minutes for calls they drop, and they are overpriced for data, so that alone sounds like enough reason :crylaugh: , I am just waiting for contract expiration, which happens to be TODAY, then porting to FreeMe. most of us are heavily data dependant, so FreeMe makes sense.

 

[Nips]

I just called Vodacom to see what it would cost to terminate my contract 3 months early. They can't give me a figure right now because they are on a "billing" run. Need to call back after 03/09. I guess they are busy loading the punch cards.

 

[Rickster]

Red is a nice colour.

 

[Pho3nix]

Signal.
Working in JHB CBD and my contract has expired. While I want to move to prepaid and then to Telkom, in the building I'd be lucky to get Edge or any signal at all.

 

[GoB]

Signal.

Yes, wife was on CellC for many years - even though she was 'connected', she would not be contactable - very often.
Same thing on 8ta and multiple phones and sim cards.
Just not worth it especially if your actual usage is low.

 

[werfie]

For that small price difference, stay with Vodacom. Just avoid Cell C completely. Telkom's network isn't so bad, but good heavens, if you ever have to interact with them, you will feel urges to hang yourself.

The only reason to move is affordability, which in this case isn't realistic with the small differences.

 

[Arthur Morgan]

So we have less users on Telkom. LTE is slowing down in my area.

 

[skimread]

The Meerkat mascot

 

[Nips]

So we have less users on Telkom. LTE is slowing down in my area.

Every test I've done on Telkom so far has been good, however that is possibly because of lower subscription rates at this stage. The possibility of slow downs due to "over-subscription" later is a real possibility - so this could be a good excuse to stay with VC.

 

[Mr.Jax]

Well lets see.

I've got a personal contract with cell c which will be canceled soon.
My company phone contract was on MTN but number got ported to vodacom recently.

CellC data network is not that great, good signal but no comms happened often. Outlying areas are the worst, expect EDGE if you're lucky.
MTN data was a lot better, but poor signal at work and home
Now with Voda I haven't had a single instance where data wasn't at least at HSDPA; its mostly on HSPA+ or LTE whether it be at work, home or any other place i frequent.

As for Telkom, I've used their LTE at home and it worked pretty well, I cannot comment on their voice performance.

 

[GrootBaas]

My Vodacom contract has been up for renewal for a few months now. Have a SIM only deal - the Smart M at R330 or something (first 24 months was R280 but defaulted to the normal price after the 24 months). Also had to regularly buy more data.

So I decided to get myself the Telkom deal of the month. So now I pay R130 per month for 1GB data and free calls to Telkom. The Huawei P8 lite is a dual sim, so changing my Vodacom SIM to prepaid and will manage it from there.

Probably would've been better to port to Telkom and buy a seperate Vodacom sim for prepaid.

Fortunately at home and at work I have great Telkom reception. However, traveled up the West Coast this weekend and it would've struggled a lot if it wasn't for the Vodacom secondary SIM I had in my phone.

Not a big fan of the device so far, so thinking of saving up and maybe importing the Oneplus 3 as my next phone. Really like this dual sim functionality, just gives you the cheap option and the good reception option.

Edit: What I'm trying to say is Vodacom is too expensive, but Telkom's reception can by sucky. You just need to find the balance somehow.

 

[Dairyfarmer]

My house is where the white block is. This is MTN, Vodacom is worse

 

[FlashSA]

Was on Vodacom for decades, then moved to Cell C for 24 months of hell in 2013 (little to no data throughput / missed call notifcations when I had not been out of coverage at all). When I could, I ported to Vodacom prepaid for a year and had superb voice and data throughput but the only way to get my 500mb data bundle pricing down was to buy the 6x500mb for R349 once off (I have wifi at work, home and an afrihost equipped mifi in the car so 500mb is all I need for inbetween).

FreeMe's free Telkom landline calls and sms's grabbed my attention (customers and clients often only have landline or want a quote via sms) and I have managed to get call rates down to 56c per second on Telkom More. Telkom voice quality is just as good as Vodacom and I have had no dropped or missed calls. I am very happy!

OP: remember that Telkom will let you out of a contract with a month's notice - you just have to settle the outstanding handset term.

 

[Dairyfarmer]

I was with Vodacom for a while. Whilst on contract things went fairly smoothly except the signal would yo-yo from 100% to nothing all over the farm. Today you would get comms in one place and tomorrow it was dead. Running dual sims MTN had a consistent level of comms. Almost always at 100%. Dead spots were always dead. Vodacom gave me a lot of trouble in the mornings. I start work at 4am and often need to phone staff to give instructions or get feedback from them. Many times it is virtually impossible to get onto the network even when I had 100% comms, between 3:30am and 5am. At 5:01am it no longer was a problem. I don't have that problem with MTN. I can almost always get a call connected. I do have a problem with delays in connecting some calls with MTN. It often takes a long time for the other side to start ringing. Can be upto a minute. We have also gone through a period of not being able to hear the other party. This was not specific to a device nor sim.

 

[Johnatan56]

Basically all depends on the signal for areas you frequent.
Here in Cape Town I am either in camps bay, CBD or northern suburbs and cellc has LTE with good throughput here.

The best idea would be to get a telkom and a cellc sim and try them out for a day or two in the places you frequent and make up your mind from there.

 

[WaxLyrical]

At those prices I would rather wait for the Note 7.

Huawei is a bit overpriced imo