Mobile data in SA - The problem with a free "lifeline"

[Bradley Prior]

Mobile data in SA - The problem with a free "lifeline"

In the South African President’s state of the Nation Address earlier this month Cyril Ramaphosa highlighted the fact that the country’s Competition Commission had instructed mobile operators to adjust their pricing in a bid to reduce digital inequality in the country.

He referred positively to a number of interventions aimed at mitigating inequality.

 

[quovadis]

Free data should only be a thing for govt services and approved non-profit & free education/training/employment services imho.

As far as data bundles go I see no reason why the price per MB for bundles below 1GB should not be priced at the same rate as a 1GB bundles and do away with all this predatory per day subscription BS.

 

[Swa]

The article doesn't address the real problem. How much do you give? 10MB is barely enough to browse a website once. Give 100MB and you're also subsidising that Linux distro though. It's hard to balance with such a large range of usage and only provide what people weren't going to buy anyway.

The real issue is the cost of data. It's why we have bundles under 500MB that we shouldn't even have. 1GB should cost R10 by now and the large bundles like 200GB should be R200.

 

[Gaz{M}]

How about the FIRST bundle you buy in a month is, say, R5 for 250MB. After that normal pricing can resume. There, everyone is happy.

 

[Gazg]

Mobile data in SA - The problem with a free "lifeline"

In the South African President’s state of the Nation Address earlier this month Cyril Ramaphosa highlighted the fact that the country’s Competition Commission had instructed mobile operators to adjust their pricing in a bid to reduce digital inequality in the country.

He referred positively to a number of interventions aimed at mitigating inequality.

Free data for all??? Someone has to pay for it.......

 

[ronz91]

I think an approach like Jio's in India could work

 

[rodga]

I think an approach like Jio's in India could work

yeah you gonna have to explain that one

 

[ronz91]

yeah you gonna have to explain that one

What is the strategy behind the Jio feature phone?

Answer: The new jio feature phone helps the company to add next 100 million subscribers and take it's revenue to 10 percent by 2018. The reports said , “The cheap handset would add 3–4 percent to annual industry revenue if adopted by at least 100 million subscribers”. Ambani keeps his eyes wide o...

www.quora.com

 

[backstreetboy]

Free data? Been having it with Afrihost. Getting 250mb free per sim for R1 once off.

 

[BBSA]

Free data? Been having it with Afrihost. Getting 250mb free per sim for R1 once off.

I get 500mb free every month with FNB

This month they gave us an extra 1Gig

 

[wizardofid]

I get 500mb free every month with FNB

This month they gave us an extra 1Gig

With afrihost, I have 3 listed sim, main afrihost sim, gets 500mb a month and the other 2 , 250mb every month, I have been getting free data from afrihost since they started with the #datamustfall promotion, 3-4 years ?.

I am not even a afrihost client per say any more as I moved over to MTN data contract which saved me a R100 a month for 10 times more data.How long has fnb been giving their clients 500mb. ?

 

[krycor]

I think an approach like Jio's in India could work

They focus on data and data based services including serving entertainment and satellite broadcast over their network. Their phone calls nationally is also free as it’s via voip & volte etc so old phones don’t work as u need 3g+

But I suspect you don’t know the dynamics of the Indian market ie that gov forced this to happen and has fined other networks too.. essentially funding jio via compliance or something. There was an interesting article or two on this..

Anyway.. coverage in India is awesome when you have it haha. See this is the slight difference in SA, you mostly have good coverage (relatively) to these cheap data markets which only focus on the main cities.

This is why a wholesale infrastructure vs serving network needs to be made via public/private partnership. (Similar needs to happen in most gov areas) because at the end of the day.. gov needs to ensure there is coverage everywhere.. but useless at running it and letting the servicing company define where they cover or manage coverage cost as composite with service.. yes they pig out.

 

[w1z4rd]

Data should be considered an essential service like water and electricity.

 

[krycor]

PS. For all you ardent pro capitalism and privatization folk.. even in the US they not sold on making the grid completely independent of the state.

At the end of the day, data (communication) as with energy and water is a utility and while serving it can be done via a plethora of serving companies these days (yay science).. getting access to it is not something you want to leave solely in the hands of a private entity as they purely profit driven.. not longer term growth driven.

 

[ronz91]

They focus on data and data based services including serving entertainment and satellite broadcast over their network. Their phone calls nationally is also free as it’s via voip & volte etc so old phones don’t work as u need 3g+

But I suspect you don’t know the dynamics of the Indian market ie that gov forced this to happen and has fined other networks too.. essentially funding jio via compliance or something. There was an interesting article or two on this..

Anyway.. coverage in India is awesome when you have it haha. See this is the slight difference in SA, you mostly have good coverage (relatively) to these cheap data markets which only focus on the main cities.

This is why a wholesale infrastructure vs serving network needs to be made via public/private partnership. (Similar needs to happen in most gov areas) because at the end of the day.. gov needs to ensure there is coverage everywhere.. but useless at running it and letting the servicing company define where they cover or manage coverage cost as composite with service.. yes they pig out.

Yeah there are parts I think apply, like a network offering a low tech phone which mostly limits the amount of data it needs, then optimise for this data to minimise the load on the network. Similar to how networks now offer social network bundles that are cheaper. Then tailor the device to take advantage of only being able to access these services. Step 1 probably communication such as whatsapp. then possibly entertainment.