MTN changes data usage rules?

[isie]

I'm the author of this piece. There was actually a lot of back and forth between me and MTN on this, with me mostly asking variants of "are you sure about this?"

In the end, Fairon is their nominated spokesperson for this issue, so I included the comment MTN provided.

Apologies Jan - didnt notice your mugshot in the corner

aprt from that I realy hope this is true means my data carry over works a a little better, and save a little money

 

[Kkkurupt]

Vodacom always shocks me, Acting like a horny President always in a hurry to eat up the new wife. Let every one wait for her turn

 

[AirWolf]

FIFO - not applied by Vodacom to either data or minutes .

 

[jannievanzyl]

Contractually this is WRONG, we must deplete the bundle we're contractually obliged to provide ou with.
JvZ (VC CBS)

Yup

 

[ToxicBunny]

Then what about the contractual bundle from a previous period that you have unilaterally removed with no recompensation to the client for a service you did not provide?

Jannie, I do appreciate your presence on the forum, but this issue above is one of the big issues I have with VC and it will be one of the big reasons I move to a different cellular provider when my contract ends.

 

[lholhos]

Wait, there are people who still don't use Cell C for mobile data??

This

 

[torgo]

Wait, there are people who still don't use Cell C for mobile data??

There r still users out there throwing money to mtn

 

[jannievanzyl]

Then what about the contractual bundle from a previous period that you have unilaterally removed with no recompensation to the client for a service you did not provide?

Jannie, I do appreciate your presence on the forum, but this issue above is one of the big issues I have with VC and it will be one of the big reasons I move to a different cellular provider when my contract ends.

We've had this discussion so often, I'm not going to type up the whole thing of access, time-based vs. physical, pipes and buckets, transient nature of data, etc. it's all on this board.

Out of interest, these other cellular providers, what are their business rules when it comes to rollover and order of consumption? This article is about MTN, so how does it work for Cell C and 8ta?

 

[j4ck455]

Out of interest, these other cellular providers, what are their business rules when it comes to rollover and order of consumption? This article is about MTN, so how does it work for Cell C and 8ta?

That is an easy one to answer: Cell C's and 8ta's data bundle rates are considerably lower than those of Vodacom and MTN to the point where consumers don't really care that Cell C and 8ta do not have rollover, sure it would be nice if Cell C and 8ta rolled data over but consumers are getting good value for money from Cell C and 8ta whereas Vodacom and MTN leave consumers feeling violated.

 

[ToxicBunny]

We've had this discussion so often, I'm not going to type up the whole thing of access, time-based vs. physical, pipes and buckets, transient nature of data, etc. it's all on this board.

Out of interest, these other cellular providers, what are their business rules when it comes to rollover and order of consumption? This article is about MTN, so how does it work for Cell C and 8ta?

Honest answer, my gripe is against all of them... I know all the stuff about access, time based vs physical etc etc etc... and I do get it, but it still doesn't change the fact that as a VC customer I feel like I get screwed every month purely because your pricing is so high on data...

 

[jannievanzyl]

Honest answer, my gripe is against all of them... I know all the stuff about access, time based vs physical etc etc etc... and I do get it, but it still doesn't change the fact that as a VC customer I feel like I get screwed every month purely because your pricing is so high on data...

Deflecting a bit?

You've got a problem with Vodacom's roll-over rules, enough to move away from VC because of it, but the networks you want to move to don't even give roll-over?

The moment I point this out, you jump topic?

 

[Paul Hjul]

We've had this discussion so often, I'm not going to type up the whole thing of access, time-based vs. physical, pipes and buckets, transient nature of data, etc. it's all on this board.

Out of interest, these other cellular providers, what are their business rules when it comes to rollover and order of consumption? This article is about MTN, so how does it work for Cell C and 8ta?

I don't use Vodacom since 2006 because the company breached my contract and despite acknowledging this persisted in f@cking around, granted it was a measly student with a weekender account and sought blackberry bolt on is a perfect example of grand corporate stupidity - - the goodwill destroyed is nothing in comparison to the business lost to MTN - but it is clear to me that they do take the lead in premier 3G internet services and come dead last in providing cheap consumer grade internet. IIRC they introduced roll on policies earlier than the other players but this doesn't have

The MNOs and Telkom are largely to blame for the construction of an equivalency between paying a service provider and an expectation of a quantity of data in megabytes to use - the idea of buying data which should suggest that the buyer owns the data to use how and when they want.

The bottom line is that instead of aggressively from the beginning offering internet access with a tiered capping/throttling policy with soft caps leading to throttling and so on they moved towards selling data at ludicrous prices R2 per meg for goodness sake has always been highway robbery and in bundles. By starting ADSL with a 3gig cap Telkom set up a broadband market which prizes using the data allocated, fortunately this move has almost been reversed with TI going to an uncapped proposition accross the board.

Consumers are demonstrably able to use under 150 megs on an "uncapped" device product with few exceptions and even higher demand smartphones does not in and of itself lead to usage of more than 2gigs for the bulk of consumers a month but because data packages are sold and have been so since inception in the way in which they are it is impossible to argue that the transient nature of data justifies an arbitrary time window system that is devised from a billing perspective and not from a physical capacity perspective.

When somebody buys a railway ticket for a specific date there concern is exclusively about the price and whether it is an acceptable price for their purposes, they don't give a damn about how the railway operator and railway industry works or the costs involved; on the other hand if the operator sells tickets for a certain number of trips to be used within a certain period of time the consumer may do the maths and almost invariably will wish that the period within which to use the ticket was longer in choosing which bulk ticket to purchase. SA mobile data industry largely works in the second equation with data bundles but because you've set the ground to equate purchasing a bundle with an expectation to use the entire bundle (rather than being able to use the entire bundle) you are stuck and it simply doesn't suffice to argue that there are technical reasons - because the consumer shouldn't have to care, the consumer buys the product or service not the underlying system. If a railway ticket is too expensive its because Transnet is full of crap and that is how people think.
Moreover - and probably more importantly - I don't believe that the guys working out products for retail actually understand the situation and every time a product is released which focuses the size of a data bundle you simply reinforce the idea of buying data itself which simply doesn't map the oft expressed technical realities.

The bottom line is that you'd have a lot less complaints about things like roll over if Vodacom and MTN aggressively pushed its data products along the lines of being the recommended high usage on a particular product and establish a soft cap at the advertized bundle size at which point consumers can elect either to (a) pay an out of bundle rate; (b) experience throttling which grows more severe until 25% over usage is a top (at which point access is cut); (c) purchasing a once off bolt up which expires at the same point as the contract and is priced accordingly. There are obvious (and probably lots of not-so-obvious reasons) why such an approach would not work but my point stands.

 

[ToxicBunny]

Honest answer, my gripe is against all of them... I know all the stuff about access, time based vs physical etc etc etc... and I do get it, but it still doesn't change the fact that as a VC customer I feel like I get screwed every month purely because your pricing is so high on data...

Deflecting a bit?

You've got a problem with Vodacom's roll-over rules, enough to move away from VC because of it, but the networks you want to move to don't even give roll-over?

The moment I point this out, you jump topic?

Actually no. They charge 10% of the price so I don't feel like I'm being royally screwed. But Paul's post below actually covers the issue quite well. You created the perception and the overly complicated system that makes customers feel hard done by

 

[caiphusn]

MTN changes data usage rules?

The rules MTN uses to deduct data from accounts seem to have changed

Yellow shall be thine colour

 

[Beri]

If you buy it you own it. All networks a full of BS. You should be able to use it until it is finnished. Bloody thiefs.

 

[AirWolf]

I don't use Vodacom since 2006 because the company breached my contract and despite acknowledging this persisted in f@cking around, granted it was a measly student with a weekender account and sought blackberry bolt on is a perfect example of grand corporate stupidity - - the goodwill destroyed is nothing in comparison to the business lost to MTN - but it is clear to me that they do take the lead in premier 3G internet services and come dead last in providing cheap consumer grade internet. IIRC they introduced roll on policies earlier than the other players but this doesn't have

The MNOs and Telkom are largely to blame for the construction of an equivalency between paying a service provider and an expectation of a quantity of data in megabytes to use - the idea of buying data which should suggest that the buyer owns the data to use how and when they want.

The bottom line is that instead of aggressively from the beginning offering internet access with a tiered capping/throttling policy with soft caps leading to throttling and so on they moved towards selling data at ludicrous prices R2 per meg for goodness sake has always been highway robbery and in bundles. By starting ADSL with a 3gig cap Telkom set up a broadband market which prizes using the data allocated, fortunately this move has almost been reversed with TI going to an uncapped proposition accross the board.

Consumers are demonstrably able to use under 150 megs on an "uncapped" device product with few exceptions and even higher demand smartphones does not in and of itself lead to usage of more than 2gigs for the bulk of consumers a month but because data packages are sold and have been so since inception in the way in which they are it is impossible to argue that the transient nature of data justifies an arbitrary time window system that is devised from a billing perspective and not from a physical capacity perspective.

When somebody buys a railway ticket for a specific date there concern is exclusively about the price and whether it is an acceptable price for their purposes, they don't give a damn about how the railway operator and railway industry works or the costs involved; on the other hand if the operator sells tickets for a certain number of trips to be used within a certain period of time the consumer may do the maths and almost invariably will wish that the period within which to use the ticket was longer in choosing which bulk ticket to purchase. SA mobile data industry largely works in the second equation with data bundles but because you've set the ground to equate purchasing a bundle with an expectation to use the entire bundle (rather than being able to use the entire bundle) you are stuck and it simply doesn't suffice to argue that there are technical reasons - because the consumer shouldn't have to care, the consumer buys the product or service not the underlying system. If a railway ticket is too expensive its because Transnet is full of crap and that is how people think.
Moreover - and probably more importantly - I don't believe that the guys working out products for retail actually understand the situation and every time a product is released which focuses the size of a data bundle you simply reinforce the idea of buying data itself which simply doesn't map the oft expressed technical realities.

The bottom line is that you'd have a lot less complaints about things like roll over if Vodacom and MTN aggressively pushed its data products along the lines of being the recommended high usage on a particular product and establish a soft cap at the advertized bundle size at which point consumers can elect either to (a) pay an out of bundle rate; (b) experience throttling which grows more severe until 25% over usage is a top (at which point access is cut); (c) purchasing a once off bolt up which expires at the same point as the contract and is priced accordingly. There are obvious (and probably lots of not-so-obvious reasons) why such an approach would not work but my point stands.

Best post of the thread.

<off_topic>
Data being transient etc etc etc, so why do SMS and minutes not follow FIFO and/or only have 30 day expiry periods?
</off_topic>

 

[ginggs]

Out of interest, these other cellular providers, what are their business rules when it comes to rollover and order of consumption? This article is about MTN, so how does it work for Cell C and 8ta?

While it is true that Cell-C have no roll-over or carry-over on their 12 x 2GB, 12 x 5GB and 365 day bundles, I have one of their Straight Up 100 contracts in my primary phone and there is some kind of roll-over or carry-over happening which I don't fully understand.

For my R99 per month subscription I should get 100 minutes, 100 SMS or MMS messages and 100 MB every month.

My current balance shows:

Available Free Minutes: 04:06:45.SMS/MMS: 281.Data: 277.66MB.

 

[j4ck455]

Deflecting a bit?

You've got a problem with Vodacom's roll-over rules, enough to move away from VC because of it, but the networks you want to move to don't even give roll-over?

The moment I point this out, you jump topic?

With all due respect, I don't see how ToxicBunny deflected your question about data rollover on Cell C and 8ta: the answer given was that Vodacom and MTN do not offer consumers value for money even with data rollover as a value-added "feature" whereas [highlight]Cell C and 8ta do offer consumers value for money even without data rollover[/highlight] <-- I think that speaks volumes about how badly off track Vodacom and MTN are with their data products and services.

As much as Vodacom and MTN might think that this is just the opinion of a disenchanted few (Telkom's take on MyAdsl back in the day), customer retention is something that every network operator and service provider should be taking seriously and if they aren't they don't deserve to be raking in the hard earned money of consumers who do have the option of moving to a competing network and/or service provider.

The bottom line is that MTN seems to have fixed their data rollover the way that consumers wanted it to be from the start and Vodacom can no longer hide behind indefensible contractual mambo jambo when the alternative actually favours consumers as opposed to the contractual obligation argument that provides no added value to consumers.

 

[jannievanzyl]

I don't use Vodacom since 2006 because the company breached my contract and despite acknowledging this persisted in f@cking around, granted it was a measly student with a weekender account and sought blackberry bolt on is a perfect example of grand corporate stupidity - - the goodwill destroyed is nothing in comparison to the business lost to MTN - but it is clear to me that they do take the lead in premier 3G internet services and come dead last in providing cheap consumer grade internet. IIRC they introduced roll on policies earlier than the other players but this doesn't have

The MNOs and Telkom are largely to blame for the construction of an equivalency between paying a service provider and an expectation of a quantity of data in megabytes to use - the idea of buying data which should suggest that the buyer owns the data to use how and when they want.

The bottom line is that instead of aggressively from the beginning offering internet access with a tiered capping/throttling policy with soft caps leading to throttling and so on they moved towards selling data at ludicrous prices R2 per meg for goodness sake has always been highway robbery and in bundles. By starting ADSL with a 3gig cap Telkom set up a broadband market which prizes using the data allocated, fortunately this move has almost been reversed with TI going to an uncapped proposition accross the board.

Consumers are demonstrably able to use under 150 megs on an "uncapped" device product with few exceptions and even higher demand smartphones does not in and of itself lead to usage of more than 2gigs for the bulk of consumers a month but because data packages are sold and have been so since inception in the way in which they are it is impossible to argue that the transient nature of data justifies an arbitrary time window system that is devised from a billing perspective and not from a physical capacity perspective.

When somebody buys a railway ticket for a specific date there concern is exclusively about the price and whether it is an acceptable price for their purposes, they don't give a damn about how the railway operator and railway industry works or the costs involved; on the other hand if the operator sells tickets for a certain number of trips to be used within a certain period of time the consumer may do the maths and almost invariably will wish that the period within which to use the ticket was longer in choosing which bulk ticket to purchase. SA mobile data industry largely works in the second equation with data bundles but because you've set the ground to equate purchasing a bundle with an expectation to use the entire bundle (rather than being able to use the entire bundle) you are stuck and it simply doesn't suffice to argue that there are technical reasons - because the consumer shouldn't have to care, the consumer buys the product or service not the underlying system. If a railway ticket is too expensive its because Transnet is full of crap and that is how people think.
Moreover - and probably more importantly - I don't believe that the guys working out products for retail actually understand the situation and every time a product is released which focuses the size of a data bundle you simply reinforce the idea of buying data itself which simply doesn't map the oft expressed technical realities.

The bottom line is that you'd have a lot less complaints about things like roll over if Vodacom and MTN aggressively pushed its data products along the lines of being the recommended high usage on a particular product and establish a soft cap at the advertized bundle size at which point consumers can elect either to (a) pay an out of bundle rate; (b) experience throttling which grows more severe until 25% over usage is a top (at which point access is cut); (c) purchasing a once off bolt up which expires at the same point as the contract and is priced accordingly. There are obvious (and probably lots of not-so-obvious reasons) why such an approach would not work but my point stands.

While you wrote an extensive post, your mostly describe what actually happens already and I find few points that I can directly answer, but I'll try:

1. You're right that it is the Network Operators and ISPs that did the conversion of bits/second to bytes in constructing data products. You're wrong that it's just the MNOs, it's an idustry standard. This conversion is actually alien to the underlying technology and underlies most of the misunderstanding that arise by selling a 'bucket of data' when you actually sold access to a network for a specific period of time with a limit on usage.

The correct way to sell such a network would to make available a certain bit-rate for a specific time, say 1Mb/s for 30 days. Of course this would put the service financially beyond the reach of most people. Inversely, if I have to ensure the price is low enough (say R100 per month), the bit-rate would be so low, it would be unusable, something like a few bits/second. Unfortunately neither of these work for most consumers (enterprises buy this way, BTW); subscribers want sporadic access at the highest possible speed. The only way to do this is to convert to bytes. If you have a better way to sell such a network, I'm all ears.

BTW, I'm one of those "guys that work out the retail products[\i]" and I do believe I understand the landscape - but if you have any suggestions on how to do the conversion while losing the time-component, I'm ready to listen.

2. You make a few suggestions on what should happen at bundle end:

a. Pay OOB - we have this in place including the ability to pay OOB=IB (though you don't mention it as an option)
b. Throttle the sub - this is actually quite a bad idea as the vast majority of users don't understand this and end up experiencing what they believe is a bad network. Even if you tell them.
c. Allow the sub to buy another bundle - this is the option I also prefer and thus you get a notification (soon with click-through links) at 70%, 90% and 100% to do exactly this. Busy making this even more sophisticated.

You forgot an important 4 option: Stop the access - We do this today with TU and CLL.

In any case, back on topic - so we've determined that Vodacom and MTN offers roll-over the others operators don't. And yet they get attacked for it while the guys that don't are not even in the discussion.

As I've often posted on this topic, it seems the only way out of this is to remove roll-over so as to avoid any confusion on the benefits.

 

[jannievanzyl]

With all due respect, I don't see how ToxicBunny deflected your question about data rollover on Cell C and 8ta: the answer given was that Vodacom and MTN do not offer consumers value for money even with data rollover as a value-added "feature" whereas [highlight]Cell C and 8ta do offer consumers value for money even without data rollover[/highlight] <-- I think that speaks volumes about how badly off track Vodacom and MTN are with their data products and services.

Of course it's deflection.

1. Discussion is on roll-over.
2. Statements are made on other networks being better in this regard.
3. It's is pointed out they don't even have roll-over.
4. Topic is switched to pricing to deflect from the fact that the mentioned service is not even offered by the other players.

In terms of pricinng, you can buy data from Vodacom on contract for a little as 6c/MB (3c/MB if you include NO) and as a bundle for 14c/MB (7c/MB if you include NO). This is pretty much in line with the industry.