Have your say, vote for Data Bundle Rollover

[Prometheus]

I'm not asking you if "enough people will agree with you". I'm asking for you to provide the proof to back up your statement. A graph of network usage over time would be the accepted type of information.

And saying you're right because you're a customer must be the biggest (and weakest) cop-out I've ever heard.

So, just post your data and we can discuss. I'm really keen to see this, as would be others, I'm sure.

(You can post it together with your "Higher speeds are less expensive to provide" proof as we're still waiting for that as well. While we're at it, throw in your "Just up the bit-rate on fiber or air interface to resolve bandwidth limits" explanation.)

I'm not saying that I'm right because I'm a customer. I'm saying that as a customer if it's slower then it's slower and there is nothing you can do to show otherwise. I don't care to prove that it is slower because I have nothing to gain from it, Vodacom will make their own decisions without our input anyway. From a business perspective there is enough people that will agree with me that when something better/cheaper comes along we will all start voting with our feet. It's up to Vodacom to either shape up and give customers what they pay for or lose them.

Why not just answer one question for a change instead of quoting from the memo so we know if it's worthwhile to continue with this thread or not. Is Vodacom seriously considering data roll over? Yes or no. Any other answer and you will not get my vote.

 

[vodacom3g]

I'm not saying that I'm right because I'm a customer.

I'm saying that as a customer if it's slower then it's slower and there is nothing you can do to show otherwise

 

[ic]

My point and ic's point: Rollover will actually alleviate the month end 'constipation' everybody sees as contract bundles expire. With usage spread out more evenly (both contract and prepaid) upgrades will be fewer and further apart.

I disagree with you.

Prior to the introduction of PPDBs, it is conceivable that there would have been more Vodacom contract data bundle customers trying to use up remaining contract data bundle data on the last day of a month.

The introduction of PPDBs solves this problem bcos the validity of PPDBs is not limited to a calendar month and can partially span from one month into the next for a maximum of 30 days, and Vodacom's PPDB customers do not all buy a PPDB on the same day of any particular month, resulting in different PPDB expiry dates.

I also believe, but do not have hard facts, that there are now a lot more people using PPDBs than there are using CDBs from Vodacom.

 

[vodacom3g]

I disagree with you.

Prior to the introduction of PPDBs, it is conceivable that there would have been more Vodacom contract data bundle customers trying to use up remaining contract data bundle data on the last day of a month.

The introduction of PPDBs solves this problem bcos the validity of PPDBs is not limited to a calendar month and can partially span from one month into the next for a maximum of 30 days, and Vodacom's PPDB customers do not all buy a PPDB on the same day of any particular month, resulting in different PPDB expiry dates.

I also believe, but do not have hard facts, that there are now a lot more people using PPDBs than there are using CDBs from Vodacom.

And now we have the smaller pre-paid data bundles.....

 

[Prometheus]

I disagree with you.

Prior to the introduction of PPDBs, it is conceivable that there would have been more Vodacom contract data bundle customers trying to use up remaining contract data bundle data on the last day of a month.

The introduction of PPDBs solves this problem bcos the validity of PPDBs is not limited to a calendar month and can partially span from one month into the next for a maximum of 30 days, and Vodacom's PPDB customers do not all buy a PPDB on the same day of any particular month, resulting in different PPDB expiry dates.

I also believe, but do not have hard facts, that there are now a lot more people using PPDBs than there are using CDBs from Vodacom.

That is not the opinion that you held in this thread.

 

[blue-eye-boy]

If I may say something, why do all this big companies don't care about our small customers? I am sure that many customers will join vc if they introduce PPDBs, there's already a lot, I think thousands of virgin's customers that can't wait. Even if they just lengthen the period from one month to two months. But why would they care anyway? Just as long as they get top financial results year after year after year, why worry.

 

[ic]

That is not the opinion that you held in this thread.

Next time use the quote button instead of trying to put words into my mouth by claiming that we both have the same opinion, besides PPDBs have had an impact.

If I may say something, why do all this big companies don't care about our small customers? I am sure that many customers will join vc if they introduce PPDBs, there's already a lot, I think thousands of virgin's customers that can't wait. Even if they just lengthen the period from one month to two months. But why would they care anyway? Just as long as they get top financial results year after year after year, why worry.

Vodacom released PPDBs on 2007-04-01, and more PPDBs were released earlier this month.

 

[Prometheus]

If I may say something, why do all this big companies don't care about our small customers? I am sure that many customers will join vc if they introduce PPDBs, there's already a lot, I think thousands of virgin's customers that can't wait. Even if they just lengthen the period from one month to two months. But why would they care anyway? Just as long as they get top financial results year after year after year, why worry.

That is most people's point. They can come with cost this and cost that but at the end of the day they know that people would buy say 1 large bundle for R300 and use over 2 months instead of 2 smaller bundles for R200. Someone should look into price fixing here. See how their 500MB-2GB bundles cost the same with the same out of bundle rate and then there is the R2 pay as you use charge which everyone except Virgin charges. It would not surprise me if Cell C implements roll-over first and I would like to see how quickly both Vodacom and MTN reacts if this happens.

Next time use the quote button instead of trying to put words into my mouth by claiming that we both have the same opinion, besides PPDBs have had an impact.

I can give you the quotes but I wasn't referring to one specific post. I am not putting words in your mouth, you yourself stated your opinion that roll-over will alleviate both the month end and general congestion. To now claim otherwise because you disagree with my other points would be dishonest.

Vodacom released PPDBs on 2007-04-01, and more PPDBs were released earlier this month.

I think he meant roll-over. Looking at the rest of his post he knows ppdbs are available. What is more interesting is that I knew his post was there but could not get to it until you posted.

One specific motivating factor, for Vodacom, is the potential to further reduce load on backhaul links, considering that Vodacom intends to lay its own fibre, offering Data Bundles that are valid for at least 90 days [and longer], would [1] spread the load on backhaul links and [2] allow Vodacom considerably more time before existing backhaul links currently rented from Telkodemonopolies, become saturated and in need of a costly capacity upgrade from Telkodemonopolies.

IOW, reduce the load on existing backhaul links, which means that a significant number of backhaul links would not need a capacity upgrade from Telkodemonopolies, for at least a good few months, which then gives Vodacom time to lay its own fibre for at least the busiest of base-stations and clusters thereof, instead of forking out additional money to Telkodemonopolies to upgrade backhaul links that Vodacom would like to replace with its own fibre, and the way to accomplish all of this, would be to offer Data Bundles that last for at least 90 days.

My feeling is that the larger data bundle sizes, would be more attractive to data customers if those data bundles rolled over, and there are many other benefits of rollover for customers, but the way ic it, is that there are several advantages for both Vodacom and MTN if they implemented DBR - customer loyalty is one: a customer that has bought a 90 day data bundle is unlikely to use the rival HSDPA network until that bundle is either used up or expired; then there are the congestion alleviation advantages, which could also save Vodacom and MTN real money by reducing the need to have more bandwidth added to existing backhaul links - instead of upgrading the capacity of backhaul links every 3 months it could be every 6 to 12 months with DBR...

It definitely is not fair when one is subjected to a lack of data throughput on the last day of a month when one's CDB expires and one cannot use up the remaining bundle data, this is one of the main reasons why we customers need DBR, and DBR would kill many troublesome birds for Vodacom and MTN - including likely future complaints lodged with !CASA's CCC that data throughput at month-end is regularly crap.

There should be a competitive race between both Vodacom and MTN to implement DBR - it is what data consumers want, and there are definite advantages for both Vodacom and MTN, for example, if both Vodacom and MTN are waiting endlessly for Telkodemonopolies to upgrade the bandwidth [capacity] of backhaul links, and both Vodacom and MTN want to remain competitive by upgrading their HSDPA networks to 3.6Mbits/s, then DBR will alleviate congestion of backhaul links bcos customers using DBR would spread their usage out over a longer period of time, and that means that the capacity of backhaul links would need to be upgraded less frequently...

 

[ic]

@Prometheus, firstly thank you for using the quote button to quote several of my old posts, most of which I still agree with , with the exception I have quoted below:

My point and ic's point: Rollover will actually alleviate the month end 'constipation' everybody sees as contract bundles expire. With usage spread out more evenly (both contract and prepaid) upgrades will be fewer and further apart.

I disagree with you.

Prior to the introduction of PPDBs, it is conceivable that there would have been more Vodacom contract data bundle customers trying to use up remaining contract data bundle data on the last day of a month.

The introduction of PPDBs solves this problem bcos the validity of PPDBs is not limited to a calendar month and can partially span from one month into the next for a maximum of 30 days, and Vodacom's PPDB customers do not all buy a PPDB on the same day of any particular month, resulting in different PPDB expiry dates.

I also believe, but do not have hard facts, that there are now a lot more people using PPDBs than there are using CDBs from Vodacom.

@Prometheus, the point you were trying to make, is that contract data bundle customers experience network congestion at month-end, or more typically on the last day of each calendar month when trying to use up remaining data on their CDBs before they expire at 23:59:59.99 on the last of the month.

My point is, that a significant number of contract data bundle customers have switched to using PPDBs instead, as anecdotal support for this statement of mine, I offer up the fact that there are far more forumites posting in MyBroadband's Vodacom Broadband forum about pre-paid data bundles compared to the number of posts about contract data bundles.

This effectively means that congestion for CDB customers on the last day of a calendar month would be alleviated.

 

[vodacom3g]

This effectively means that congestion for CDB customers on the last day of a calendar month would be alleviated.

Which I've never seen in an actual report. But we're still awaiting Prom's more accurate, up-to-date reports showing these month-en spikes.....

Oh, wait, I forgot, Prom (as a customer) is by default right and does not need to prove anything....

We do a huge amount of processing at month-end (like any consumer-based company) and this sometimes put load on some systems, but nothing that would affect your throughput.

 

[ic]

Which I've never seen in an actual report. But we're still awaiting Prom's more accurate, up-to-date reports showing these month-en spikes.....

Oh, wait, I forgot, Prom (as a customer) is by default right and does not need to prove anything....

We do a huge amount of processing at month-end (like any consumer-based company) and this sometimes put load on some systems, but nothing that would affect your throughput.

IMO 'month-end congestion' would mostly depend on the area one is in: how many base-stations there are in a cluster in that area, how much backhaul bandwidth is available to everyone connected via that cluster of base-stations in that area, this obviously does not extrapolate to everyone in all other areas, i.e. if customers in one area e.g. in Dullview experience 'month-end congestion', it does not mean that all other customers in other areas are experiencing the same thing, but it is easy to incorrectly assume that they are.

 

[feo]

Sorry for me to butt into this highly technical debate but can we expect rollover as a Christmas pressie from Vodacom?

 

[AirWolf]

Sorry for me to butt into this highly technical debate but can we expect rollover as a Christmas pressie from Vodacom?

^^^ What he said

 

[ic]

I suspect that once both Vodacom and MTN own enough of their own fibre optic backhaul, and when SEACOM bandwidth is available, we are more likely to see higher caps and maybe even uncapped from one or both of them - especially the closer we get to the 2010 w/c. It won't happen whilst Vodacom & MTN are still paying Telkodemonopolies' exorbitant pricing for backhaul links, and neither will DBR for the exact same reason.

 

[Prometheus]

@Prometheus, the point you were trying to make, is that contract data bundle customers experience network congestion at month-end, or more typically on the last day of each calendar month when trying to use up remaining data on their CDBs before they expire at 23:59:59.99 on the last of the month.

More correctly that everyone experience network congestion at month-end. It would not affect only the contract users causing the congestion.

My point is, that a significant number of contract data bundle customers have switched to using PPDBs instead, as anecdotal support for this statement of mine, I offer up the fact that there are far more forumites posting in MyBroadband's Vodacom Broadband forum about pre-paid data bundles compared to the number of posts about contract data bundles.

This effectively means that congestion for CDB customers on the last day of a calendar month would be alleviated.

That is not the impression you gave throughout the thread and one statement specifically which I quoted you refer to lack of throughput at month end. You are allowed to change your mind but without stating so I was neither wrong nor putting words into your mouth by using your previous opinion. I only used that and not to support any of my other opinions as you can see.

I have to say though that since prepaid bundles are new we can expect more posts to be about them. Also the requests for smaller (and larger) bundles which contract customers already had and it seems prepaid bundles have been the spot of many problems lately.

IMO 'month-end congestion' would mostly depend on the area one is in: how many base-stations there are in a cluster in that area, how much backhaul bandwidth is available to everyone connected via that cluster of base-stations in that area, this obviously does not extrapolate to everyone in all other areas, i.e. if customers in one area e.g. in Dullview experience 'month-end congestion', it does not mean that all other customers in other areas are experiencing the same thing, but it is easy to incorrectly assume that they are.

I realise this. Based on complaints though it appears to not only be in one specific area. That is why I ask how many base stations have actually been upgraded since hsdpa was launched as it does not appear to be that many to me. This may be blamed on Telkom but I am not dealing with them and if Vodacom can not ensure a more or less consistent service from month to month and from user to user they should give value in some other way.

Sorry for me to butt into this highly technical debate but can we expect rollover as a Christmas pressie from Vodacom?

Also what I wanted to know though not in so many words. Unfortunately my question for a very direct answer with a yes or a no as to whether or not Vodacom is seriously considering it has not been answered. To be expected when the only answers we get are when they can candy-coat them in some way.

 

[!!DV!!]

This has gone to length, the question is will roll over ever happen?

 

[d0b33]

We can only hope, but If Vodacom introduces it I will happily leave Virgin.

 

[ic]

Would be nice if the MTN reps could comment as well...

 

[AirWolf]

Would be nice if the MTN reps could comment as well...

Unlikely as they were voting against it.

 

[AirWolf]

This thread seems to have disappeared into oblivion and votes have treacled to a halt