How your mobile contract is nailing you

DrJohnZoidberg said:
I continued with my contract because it worked out cheaper than the pre-paid option.
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Yeah same here. I have actually tried pre-paid for a few months. Much more costlier than contract. Which is why I have had one for the good part of 9 years.
 
Empty N is also doing this only difference with them is their product range sucks.
 
The only reason to keep a sim only cheap top up contract is for roaming. Prepaid roaming still sucks in most countries, and you need to be able to get bank OTP.
 
lcbxx said:
I don't agree with the subsidised handset working out at a discount. The Carriers nail Consumers when it comes to phone prices, often charging 30% over and above the cash price from other retailers.

As for SMS's - the Carriers can well and truly shove that and offer larger data bundles.
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I cannot speak for other handsets but the calculation i did for an iPhone actually works out not bad at all.
Lets suppose im taking the iPhone 6 16Gb the cash price for me would be R9 999 from Digicape or iStore.
Thats the best cash price i can find currently so if i was able to borrow that amount of money interest free for 2 years i would need to pay a minimum of R416.65 per month to cover the cost of that R10 000 device.
Now if you look at the price on Vodacom you would see its available for R499p/m (yes i am aware its going up to R509)

If i was a Prepaid customer i would pay
Cash R10 000 (iPhone 6 16gb)
75 Minutes of talking time at 79c min=R59.25
250MB 30day Data bundle R59
(and i am aware that Smart S is 200Mb not 250mb so for this comparison i will disregard the cost of 200 SMS's on prepaid at 50c per SMS(R100)

Prepaid
Total cost for Data and voice =R118.25 p/m
Cash iPhone 6 16gb R9 999 (R416.63)

R534.88 or R12 837 over 24 months

Postpaid

"Cost" Smart S R209
"Handset" R300

R509 pm or R12 216 over 24 Months

I am confident that the networks obviously get that iPhone at a much lower price than i would ever be able to get as a non bulk customer.
And that they might even subsidise from one side to another for example when they give you a supposite break down of pricing saying the device is R300 and the Package is R209 but in actual fact more than R300 could be going at the device as the article states it does not really cost the network much to give you SMS's or voice bundles as an example but the handset does cost them money.
 
I wonder how many people fully utilise the inclusive minutes/data/sms each and every month. If you don't then your savings should be a lot higher than the table indicates.
 
Interesting article.

Well I have not renewed my contract in years.. but not switched to pre-paid either.

Now just for fun I did this calc on a Sony Z3 Compact.

24 month contract with the same package I have ATM.

24 x R429 = R10,296

Buy the phone cash and keep my existing contract.

Phone : R5000 from Orange + 24 x R100 (current contract) = R7,400

So I guess I will keep on buying my phones cash...
 
Yip, also been buying my phones cash for a while.

Got my LG G3 dual sim on eBay, and use Vodacom 79c/sec for voice, and Afrihost for data.

No OOB shark for me.
 
Prepaid is beautiful. Thanks to eBucks I can't remember the last time I spent real money on airtime.
 
lcbxx said:
I don't agree with the subsidised handset working out at a discount. The Carriers nail Consumers when it comes to phone prices, often charging 30% over and above the cash price from other retailers.

As for SMS's - the Carriers can well and truly shove that and offer larger data bundles.
Click to expand...
Sometimes it does. When I was looking at the N8 the contract prices over the 2 year period would come out cheaper than the RRP. Not really a phone you could get through other retailers. Add the voice minutes for someone who would use them and it's a win-win even with the shady dealings going on now.
 
Where do you get a rate of 79c/minute? I made a call the other day and it cost me nearly R30 for less than 10 minutes!
 
marine1 said:
Prepaid really does seem better from that table
Click to expand...

Well, I did illustrate that to you on that one post where you said your spend was R1600 and used the R1,20 plan.

If on the 79c per minute plan from VC you can call for 21 hours on the phone, a month, for R1000, and spend R399 on 5GB of data. Do you even call 21 hours in a month?
 
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