New MTN EDGE Pricing

[ajax]

I can confirm that prepaid users will have web access from the 11th. The bundles will not be available.

From MTN's website:
*Pay as you Go subscribers can only access WAP, and not the internet, at this time.

???

Also, from the website:"In terms of the current regulatory regime in South Africa, please note that these tariffs and the MTN GPRS, GPRS+ and EDGE technologies may not be used to transfer or generate Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) traffic. Should it be found that VoIP traffic was carried over the MTN network using these tariffs or technologies, MTN reserves the right to cancel the agreement that you have with MTN, with immediate effect. You will also be charged retrospectively at R25.00 per Megabyte (VAT included) for any VoIP traffic transferred by such means."

???

 

[Hydrofire]

That VoIP fineprint sounds like bull**** hiding behind the "regulatory regime"...

Anyone know how much traffic would a minute of VoIP usage generate?

 

[ajax]

I think it is a simple matter of sloppiness on MTN's side. They just have not updated the website fully yet.

 

[diabolus]

Anyone know how much traffic would a minute of VoIP usage generate?

About 600kB-900kB [up+down] per minute [very rough estimate as it depends on quality of connection and probably how much you actually say ] . [I usually just assume 1MB p/minute for easy calculation]

Of course Skype rates to SA isn't actually that cheap [15c to UK vs 62c to SA landlines and R1.79 UK mobiles vs R1.65 SA mobiles ] ...so it's not really that much cheaper if you phone locally or to mobiles, international landlines and mobiles it is though [which is very ironic]. (And now you need to add the data usage on top of the rate i.e. 1MB p/minute + skyperate p/minute)

 

[Hydrofire]

And something that doesn't interconnect with the telephone network? eg. MSN user to MSN user voice session? That would just incur a data charge. Is that technically even VoIP?

 

[diabolus]

And something that doesn't interconnect with the telephone network? eg. MSN user to MSN user voice session? That would just incur a data charge. Is that technically even VoIP?

Not sure what that counts as, but you can Skype-to-Skype for free as well [just a data charge]. I can't see how they can consider MSN/ICQ/AOL voice chat as Voip because then you can probably just take it a step further and do video chatting [which is probably a type of loophole ]

 

[Hydrofire]

Yes, but that video chatting would probably be more expensive in data usage than a 3G video call, so they would be happy with that I guess.

 

[fergus]

And something that doesn't interconnect with the telephone network? eg. MSN user to MSN user voice session? That would just incur a data charge. Is that technically even VoIP?

Well MSN allows voice to travel over Internet Protocol so I would say yes, although its not a purely VoIP application as such. To start with the whole ban of VoIP in this country was completely bogus and unreasonable. Surely MTN just need to update their site to reflect the fact that VoIP is now completely legal.

 

[Hydrofire]

Well MWeb are advertising the use of voice traffic in QQ widely - and I don't see how the "regulatory regime" applies differently to one ISP than it does to another. I would consider MTN to be just another ISP in this instance.

 

[diabolus]

Surely MTN just need to update their site to reflect the fact that VoIP is now completely legal.

So they neglected to update their site since VoiP was legalized?? Wasn't that like on Feb 1 2005 ? That's pretty unprofessional imho, i mean we're talking about rules,policies and court cases here [not just outdated rates]

 

[fergus]

Methinks mtnbb is rather conspicious by his absense today. We could certainly use his presence round here to help sort out all the confusion.

 

[johandutoit2000]

Autopage still has no idea that these new DATA bundles exists. Has anyone had any luck with adding a bundle to their contracts?

 

[Hydrofire]

I called 808 this morning to order a data bundle, and Pretty knew what I was talking about. Apparently she has activated it and I will get an SMS confirming this within 24 hours.

 

[johandutoit2000]

Where does 808 take you?

 

[johandutoit2000]

After I had to scream at everyone at Autopage, I got them to admit that a new data bundle scheme exists. Apparantly nobody let them know. Not good enough! How do I know then? They will be updating their systems before the end of the day.

 

[MTNBroadband]

After I had to scream at everyone at Autopage, I got them to admit that a new data bundle scheme exists. Apparantly nobody let them know. Not good enough! How do I know then? They will be updating their systems before the end of the day.

Thanks for this feedback.

MTN sent out an official notification to all Service Providers a few weeks back which detailed all the tariffs and new associated rules. The contents even surfaced on this Forum!

Have sent an internal request to sort this out.

Thanks

 

[MTNBroadband]

Where does 808 take you?

808 is the number to call from an MTN handset to access MTN Service Provider Customer Services.

Thanks

 

[MTNBroadband]

Well MSN allows voice to travel over Internet Protocol so I would say yes, although its not a purely VoIP application as such. To start with the whole ban of VoIP in this country was completely bogus and unreasonable. Surely MTN just need to update their site to reflect the fact that VoIP is now completely legal.

The voice over IP issue needs a detailed response and I will revert once I have this. It will take a little longer to respond than a simple clarification of a tariff detail or technical question on EDGE.

 

[johandutoit2000]

Thanks for this feedback.

MTN sent out an official notification to all Service Providers a few weeks back which detailed all the tariffs and new associated rules. The contents even surfaced on this Forum!

Have sent an internal request to sort this out.

Thanks

Surely MTN should have double checked with the Service Providers that their systems are in place... I mean really!

 

[damian24]

I called 808 this morning to order a data bundle, and Pretty knew what I was talking about. Apparently she has activated it and I will get an SMS confirming this within 24 hours.

Be very very carfull that it wasn't an SMS bundle that they activated! It was what they wanted to activate for me. Check on the online site if they activated the correct thing.

I see that the DataLive service name has changed to Packet Switched Data on the invoices as well.

D