Have your say, vote for Data Bundle Rollover

[Hobbit]

That's a liberal interpretation sky.akash......

 

[ic]

Vodaworld Magazine Winter 2007

Under the title "Winning Letter" the editor makes the following comment "In respect of carrying over any used data bundle megabytes, Vodacom now allows its customers to carry over any remaining bytes to the next month"... am I missing something or does the editor know something that I don't?

Been asked & answered before - in this same thread, read v3g's existing reply post.

 

[Csnoopy]

1)How about letting us have a status update on the progress of this issue. Not just a yes it is being looked at. This means nothing. Is there a project plan in place 1,6,12 months time etc.

2)What happens with the lost data to the user, does Vodacom take it & re-sell ?. I think what they do is they force you to use it all & go into oob so they can make even more.(That is for contract users).

 

[pietpetoors]

data

It is like buying a 2 litre Coke at the Spar and they tell you if you have not finished it in 2 days it will be change into thin air.

This is ludicrous, it is your bandwidth, you bought it, you paid for it and then they want to steal it back when you have not used it all.

 

[AirWolf]

It is like buying a 2 litre Coke at the Spar and they tell you if you have not finished it in 2 days it will be change into thin air.

This is ludicrous, it is your bandwidth, you bought it, you paid for it and then they want to steal it back when you have not used it all.

Similar analogies have been used in the past. We just have to spread the word about this thread and get as many votes as possible for Vodacom to notice us

 

[Csnoopy]

@Brad.

Basically everything is done to keep as many sites going as possible cos if the sites are down and you guys cannot use the service, the networks cannot steal your bucks and get rich.

You wanna bet.(Why do we have to vote for Data Rollover).

 

[JBenci]

Remaining ?

Hi.
I just want to double check with you guys to make sure I'm reading this right.
I checked Vodacom4me and it tells me I still have 782530.56 KB Remaining in my adhoc Bundle.

So I thats 780 odd meg right that I have to use by the end of the day or I'll lose them at midnight?

thanks.

 

[Iam3G]

You got that right! You deserve a golden star

 

[ic]

Actually 764.19MB that you have to use today or lose it bcos there is currently no rollover for data bundles.

 

[AirWolf]

Ic you merged that other thread with this one just as I was posting in that one

 

[ic]

Ic you merged that other thread with this one just as I was posting in that one

My apologies, I assume the forum s/w told you that the other thread doesn't exist anymore.

@JBenci, your vote in the poll above would be most welcome...

 

[AirWolf]

I diverted to this thread but my post had disappeared. Anyway I was just recommending that JBenci vote here which you have done already

 

[ic]

I diverted to this thread but my post had disappeared. Anyway I was just recommending that JBenci vote here which you have done already

Hmmm forum s/w shouldn't have thrown away your post - naughty forum s/w .

Voting is going extremely slowly, it would be nice if everyone could promote this thread by putting a link to it in their forum signatures, if you're not sure how to do this, follow these instructions:

1. Copy the following text:
   
   [noparse]Vote for Data Bundle Rollover...[/noparse]
   
   
2. Now click on this link to edit your forum signature and then paste the copied text into the "Your Signature:" box, and then click on the "Save Signature" button.

 

[Csnoopy]

Hi.
I just want to double check with you guys to make sure I'm reading this right.
I checked Vodacom4me and it tells me I still have 782530.56 KB Remaining in my adhoc Bundle.

So I thats 780 odd meg right that I have to use by the end of the day or I'll lose them at midnight?

thanks.

The moral of the story is if you snooze you loose.
Can't we all get 5 votes per Vote

The R6b question, what happens to the data that is lost does BIG BROTHER resell it or or ........ PLS! Jokes aside this is very serious. The past to month we went over lots. Now this this month we are under by 520MB. Will they pass me a credit for last months oob.

 

[Csnoopy]

Actually 764.19MB that you have to use today or lose it bcos there is currently no rollover for data bundles.

I had about the same left so I decided to do a WIndows XP update, and that only took about 120MB.

Can anybody recommend some downloads that are free to use.
1) VMC 9.1.2.5766.zip @ 75MB http://168.210.128.126/vcozadoc/services/3g/downloads/software/Setup-9.1.2.5766.zip
2) VMC-lite 2.2.1.10 @ 7 Meg http://168.210.128.126/vcozadoc/services/3g/downloads/software/SetupVMCLite_V2.2.1.10.exe

 

[vodacom3g]

The R6b question, what happens to the data that is lost does BIG BROTHER resell it or or ........ PLS! Jokes aside this is very serious. The past to month we went over lots. Now this this month we are under by 520MB. Will they pass me a credit for last months oob.

If you can figure out a way to store unused bandwidth, you'll pocket R6B very quickly.....

Something to consider when thinking about this concept (and I'm not advocating it one way or the other, merely giving some info I though others would have posted by now) is the whole supply chain for data communications.

Available bandwidth is a real-time product, i.e. you can't hoard it and is a function of the clock frequency of the links. As such it has a time component, we measure it in Mb/s or Gb/s, etc.

Vodacom does not buy a certain amount of data from companies like Telkom, rather it buys a certain amount of bandwidth. This runs constantly and if no-one is using it, it does not make any difference. It's lost forever.

To put this into perspective, lets assume everyone buys a 1G bundle in a specific month. Vodacom must ensure that there is enough bandwidth to deliver this. But no-one uses it that month. The cost to deliver is still the same to Vodacom. Although the bandwidth was paid for, it was never used. And you can't keep it in a bucket.

The next month everyone wants double the capability and Vodacom provides this (i.e. roll-over). Now the network must deliver the bandwidth and there will be a general performance hit, effectively everyone will run at ~50% of normal download speed. So the complaints come flooding in.

To accommodate this, Vodacom must double up on capacity with the corresponding cost implications.

So you can see when the bundle pricing is calculated, projected usage figures are included and contributes to a specific price.

A possibility to get data roll over could include paying some premium for it (as ic suggested before).

One could also build a range of products with different access speeds at different price points (like we used to have till you guys bitched so much (especially ic!!) that we dropped it.) I still like this idea, it makes a lot of sense to manage bandwidth. Low speed/ low price.

 

[Csnoopy]

If you can figure out a way to store unused bandwidth, you'll pocket R6B very quickly.....

Something to consider when thinking about this concept (and I'm not advocating it one way or the other, merely giving some info I though others would have posted by now) is the whole supply chain for data communications.

Available bandwidth is a real-time product, i.e. you can't hoard it and is a function of the clock frequency of the links. As such it has a time component, we measure it in Mb/s or Gb/s, etc.

Vodacom does not buy a certain amount of data from companies like Telkom, rather it buys a certain amount of bandwidth. This runs constantly and if no-one is using it, it does not make any difference. It's lost forever.

To put this into perspective, lets assume everyone buys a 1G bundle in a specific month. Vodacom must ensure that there is enough bandwidth to deliver this. But no-one uses it that month. The cost to deliver is still the same to Vodacom. Although the bandwidth was paid for, it was never used. And you can't keep it in a bucket.

The next month everyone wants double the capability and Vodacom provides this (i.e. roll-over). Now the network must deliver the bandwidth and there will be a general performance hit, effectively everyone will run at ~50% of normal download speed. So the complaints come flooding in.

To accommodate this, Vodacom must double up on capacity with the corresponding cost implications.

So you can see when the bundle pricing is calculated, projected usage figures are included and contributes to a specific price.

A possibility to get data roll over could include paying some premium for it (as ic suggested before).

One could also build a range of products with different access speeds at different price points (like we used to have till you guys bitched so much (especially ic!!) that we dropped it.) I still like this idea, it makes a lot of sense to manage bandwidth. Low speed/ low price.

I hear what you say (Interesting), but then how do the other countries & ADSL do it they give you unlimited data.

And how does GGC do it do they buy a large bundle every month hoping they sell it if not they then loose it.

So everybody wins accept the end user. All the other guys in the pipeline get paid.?

 

[vodacom3g]

I hear what you say (Interesting), but then how do the other countries & ADSL do it they give you unlimited data.

And how does GGC do it do they buy a large bundle every month hoping they sell it if not they then loose it.

So everybody wins accept the end user. All the other guys in the pipeline get paid.?

Basically if you want to provide roll-over you build some fat into your price. You base this on your projections of expected usage and waste. For example, without roll-over it's 19c/Mb, with roll-over 25c/Mb (just numbers I pick, don't get excited! But you get the idea.)

If I read GGC correctly, they play with the different bundle prices, selling at the modem-included price for all bundles, so the more OOB you go, the more they score.

 

[ic]

...
One could also build a range of products with different access speeds at different price points (like we used to have till you guys bitched so much (especially ic!!) that we dropped it.) I still like this idea, it makes a lot of sense to manage bandwidth. Low speed/ low price.

LOL yes I did bitch & moan about the difference in price according to bearer-network speed . My main point though, was that there would be lots of customers complaining about getting vanilla-3G or lowers speeds when paying HSDPA prices. A data bundle price based on the volume of data and not the speed at which the data can theoretically be transferred, makes things easier & simpler for consumers of that data, i.e. customers .

I'm sure you would agree that it is near impossible to guarantee constant fixed speeds and set latency on a wireless network where signal quality and signal strength fluctuates, and then there is [searchforum]cell breathing[/searchforum] as well, so my thinking is that Vodacom should not even attempt to have different data bundle prices based on different speeds that can theoretically be achieved on different bearer networks. Another factor, is that trying to artificially shape a higher data transfer speed down to a lower data transfer speed, inevitably means that latency on packets will be increased by whatever is doing the shaping, and one of Vodacom's main selling points, is that Vodacom does not shape data traffic.

The broadband trend internationally, is to provide higher data transfer speeds, and not to limit the speed at which people can transfer data.

I hear what you say (Interesting), but then how do the other countries & ADSL do it they give you unlimited data.
...

Other countries don't have Telkodemonopolies monopolising the market and controlling the flow of data to maximise profits.

 

[Csnoopy]

@ic why you like google mail so much ?