MTN slashed its broadband costs

On the fixed vs. wireless debate;

To make it simple think you have to get a signal over, say 1 km. With copper you have a reliable, robust, high-bandwidth link. With wireless you have to build very complex pieces of equipment on both sides to modulate and demodulate the signal onto the spectrum assigned to you.

Which is more cost effective?

Once you have a bit of copper in the ground, how often does it break? Or suddenly give lower throughput? With wireless you share the airwaves with many, many other users (and abusers). So, as soon as you think you've got a reliable link, someone does something (introduce a new RF signal, etc.) and you have to redesign your network.

Which is cheaper to maintain?

Now the throughput must be upgraded. With copper the link already has massive bandwidth (think ADSL going from 1 to 4Mb/s Did Telkom lay new copper). With wireless you need new processing capabilities to do even fancier modulation on both ends. Just about a forklift upgrade.

Which is cheaper to upgrade?

It might be easier to deploy a radio network due to right-of-way issues. But it's much more expensive, and much, much more complex to get right.

You'll never beat copper on price, reliability and throughput. It's just a fact of physics.

The real question is why are mobile wireless prices so close to copper that they can be compared in the first place?
 
HvRooyen said:
Amen.
I thought data roaming from SA was a ripoff at R17.50/MB, until I saw the mobile data costs elsewhere. See http://www.o2.co.uk/mobilestariffs/tariffs/datatariffs for another example.
Click to expand...
Mobile data is expensive abroad because everyone uses far cheaper and more established landline broadband. You can't have cheap tariffs if noone is using it.
Also, towers are smaller and less powerful, so they need more of them.
vodacom3g said:
The real question is why are mobile wireless prices so close to copper that they can be compared in the first place?
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You protest too much :rolleyes:
Vodacom wants CUSTOMERS to finance the NEXT generation of data, so that they can compete or better Telkom's offering.

Like at school, we had to pay in for a swimming pool that the next intake of pupils were going to enjoy. Then when we wanted to use it on the weekend (now out of school), we were chased away.

I say to Vodacom, fix what you already have. Get your speeds up to where they should be instead of enticing people with the unrealistic 1.8 or whatever. Fix call quality (nowhere near European standards) and reliability, instead of creaming off money to pay fatcats and to build 4G.
 
Gru said:
Dear Mr. Molotsane.

Please take note of MTN's price reductions. That's how you get more customers and keep your existing customers happy. Not by adding a bigger pot of vaseline for the shafting you give them

With All my love (yeah so i can lie as good you..)
Gru
Click to expand...

That's what most of us keep on telling them, but it seems as if it goes into one ear and out of the other...

Kudos to MTN for starting it.
 
vodacom3g said:
On the fixed vs. wireless debate;

To make it simple think you have to get a signal over, say 1 km. With copper you have a reliable, robust, high-bandwidth link. With wireless you have to build very complex pieces of equipment on both sides to modulate and demodulate the signal onto the spectrum assigned to you.

Which is more cost effective?

Once you have a bit of copper in the ground, how often does it break? Or suddenly give lower throughput? With wireless you share the airwaves with many, many other users (and abusers). So, as soon as you think you've got a reliable link, someone does something (introduce a new RF signal, etc.) and you have to redesign your network.

Which is cheaper to maintain?

Now the throughput must be upgraded. With copper the link already has massive bandwidth (think ADSL going from 1 to 4Mb/s Did Telkom lay new copper). With wireless you need new processing capabilities to do even fancier modulation on both ends. Just about a forklift upgrade.

Which is cheaper to upgrade?

It might be easier to deploy a radio network due to right-of-way issues. But it's much more expensive, and much, much more complex to get right.

You'll never beat copper on price, reliability and throughput. It's just a fact of physics.

The real question is why are mobile wireless prices so close to copper that they can be compared in the first place?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the input - and these are facts which I also realize.

But the fact is that nobody is willing (except MTN as per this article) to start slashing their prices to be more benefical to customers. They prefer to keep it (especially a monopolistic company) high so as to benefit themselves and not to benefit their customers.

Regards

Libs
 
The bottom line is that Vodacom's profits are obscene and the margins they reap wouldn't be possible in a competitive market. All other arguments are just smoke and mirrors to distract from this. R1,000,000 profit approximately every 16 minutes ...
 
Turtle said:
The bottom line is that Vodacom's profits are obscene and the margins they reap wouldn't be possible in a competitive market. All other arguments are just smoke and mirrors to distract from this. R1,000,000 profit approximately every 16 minutes ...
Click to expand...

True and that goes for MTN and Telkom.

Does anybody know if the new prices goes for pre-paid data bundles as well?
 
They make a huge profit on SMSs. I've asked before, but I never get an answer about what it costs the networks to send these. I've heard it's like less than 2c.
 
The_Librarian said:
Thanks for the input - and these are facts which I also realize.

But the fact is that nobody is willing (except MTN as per this article) to start slashing their prices to be more benefical to customers. They prefer to keep it (especially a monopolistic company) high so as to benefit themselves and not to benefit their customers.

Regards

Libs
Click to expand...

I think if you plot the price reduction in SA for mobile data, you'll find it outperforms any other bearer network. Not so long ago we paid R40/Mb and now we're already on 39c/Mb for Vodacom. (and the speed went up by a factor of 40 or so!) That's a price/performance increase of about 4000:1 over less than 3 years.

I can't see this trend stopping. There will always be downward pressure on pricing.

Obviously MTN upped the ante with this new packaging (although it's not so much a price reduction as a packaging of certain bundles, on offer for only 3 months)

Let's see what the product guys come up with.
 
I also think you have to look at global comparisons. Mobile data here is almost the cheapest in the world, despite the inflated prices the networks pay for leased lines, intl bandwidth etc.
 
V3G

Just glad that it looks like it didn't leak out this time :cool:
Competition is nice and I'm all for it.

I also just hope that this 2G R 399 could be permanent. Now that would be gr8
 
Pitbull said:
V3G

Just glad that it looks like it didn't leak out this time :cool:
Competition is nice and I'm all for it.

I also just hope that this 2G R 399 could be permanent. Now that would be gr8
Click to expand...

Yes, it looks like you guys kept it from those weekly meetings we have between all the networks to 'fix pricing'.....:rolleyes:

Although MTN advertises it as a 3 month only offer, it probably will stick. Normally does.
 
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This is awesome! It's almost feasible to rip you ADSL line out of the wall now. As soon as they change it to 3GB for R400 it will be cheaper than most ADSL offerings and we can go ahead. But it's still an excellent move for the time being.
 
Oh yeah, if you sign a 2-year contract with them for R479 per month it will be "permanent" for the next 2 years at least.
 
Skeptik said:
I say to Vodacom, fix what you already have. Get your speeds up to where they should be instead of enticing people with the unrealistic 1.8 or whatever. Fix call quality (nowhere near European standards) and reliability, instead of creaming off money to pay fatcats and to build 4G.
Click to expand...

Agreed!

HSDPA is already lightning fast. The need for better speed is not high among the people I interact with.

But they want more reliable 1.8Mb/s HSDPA coverage as well as voice coverage. There are general complaints about calls being dropped in the dips on the highways etc.

My experience is that people want to put down their HSDPA modems where they like and it has to work. Hunting for a decent signal in urban areas is a no-no!
 
It's a good deal if you live in a HSDPA covered area and need about 2GB a month. Pretty niche, but definitely a step in the right direction. Well done.
 
vodacom3g said:
Although MTN advertises it as a 3 month only offer, it probably will stick. Normally does.
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Do you have any info on Prepaid data bundles? I needed this option over Christmas and the VC operator said it was in the pipeline. Had to go with MTN because that is where my contract used to be.
 
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