New MTN EDGE Pricing

Cell C

ajax said:
By the way, anybody heard anything from Cell C???
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A colleague of mine e-mailed them asking when they will drop their data rates. The reply he recieved was that they did invest a lot of money in their infrastructure and was not planning to drop their rates in the near future.

Well good luck to them, they will not keep many customers at R25/MB.

:rolleyes:
 
zaphod said:
A colleague of mine e-mailed them asking when they will drop their data rates. The reply he recieved was that they did invest a lot of money in their infrastructure and was not planning to drop their rates in the near future.

Well good luck to them, they will not keep many customers at R25/MB.

:rolleyes:
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Hi -I have spoken to one of their "senior managers" and a reduction in rates is on the card. I would like to clear something up here : Cell rates are governed by ICASA - the networks cant just increase or reduce rates. They HAVE to file the change with ICASA and get approval. CellC have filed a rate change with ICASA and are waiting on the result.

I dunno about the comment about infrastructure investment. Cell C have a roaming agreement with Vodacom - surely they can resell Vodacoms data services? If they didnt included data in the roaming agreement, well then they are stupid....
 
Gaz{M} said:
I think EDGE is a real alternative to Telkom dialup services. I am currently browsing this forum now before 7pm on EDGE. It's at least as fast as a 56k modem and i've been online now for 20 minutes, total data usage is 500k - R1 on MTN in other words. If i had dialed up using my 64k isdn, those 20 minutes would have cost me R6.40. Amazing, isn't it?
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I also totally agree with you Gaz. For the "average" home user that just wants to check email and browse web sites, 3G/EDGE solutions provide a killer alternative. And between the three networks they have much deeper market penetration than Telkom will ever have... And EDGE services are substantially better than Telkom ISDN services as well, never mind analogue :D

My finding so far show that when browsing a web page on EDGE, there is almost no difference in response compared to ADSL. In fact, on international web sites, EDGE is better than ADSL - MTN have really got their International connectivity sorted out big time - you get your full speed internationally as well as locally.

What the service is NOT good for is gaming, P2P and big downloads. If these services are a requirement, you will be better off with ADSL.

What I would like to see from the networks :

a. A marketing campaign pitching the service as a valid (and often substantially cheaper) alternative to dial up access (which it is).
b. Easy home connectivity solutions (Analogue is still easier for the man in the street to configure).
 
Hi,

I am currently dailing in on GPRS and it works great, except I'm only getting speeds of around 5 to 6kb/s, which seems good enough for browsing and playing the odd Java multiplayer online game.

My phone (Sony Erics P900) only shows SA MTN, regardless of where I am, so I'm not sure, if there is an Edge tower (which would then show Y'ello broadband) in the vicinity (Magaliesig, Fourways).

Question:How do I get it to show, the tower? I spoke to the SP (808) and they told me I should remove any active screen saver on the phone, then it should work. But I never had any screensavers. What shall I do next.

Thanks
 
Hi

I feel a bit stupid; sorted my question out. Just had to select it under control panel, 'area tab'

Now I guess I have to wait and see if it displays the y'ello broadband thingy
ciao
 
Broadband economics vs ISDN

ScrnScrm said:
I also totally agree with you Gaz. For the "average" home user that just wants to check email and browse web sites, 3G/EDGE solutions provide a killer alternative. And between the three networks they have much deeper market penetration than Telkom will ever have... And EDGE services are substantially better than Telkom ISDN services as well, never mind analogue :D

My finding so far show that when browsing a web page on EDGE, there is almost no difference in response compared to ADSL. In fact, on international web sites, EDGE is better than ADSL - MTN have really got their International connectivity sorted out big time - you get your full speed internationally as well as locally.

What the service is NOT good for is gaming, P2P and big downloads. If these services are a requirement, you will be better off with ADSL.

What I would like to see from the networks :

a. A marketing campaign pitching the service as a valid (and often substantially cheaper) alternative to dial up access (which it is).
b. Easy home connectivity solutions (Analogue is still easier for the man in the street to configure).
Click to expand...

I disposed of my ISDN line as soon as Vodacom made 3G available. I am ecstatic with that decision, in spite of the fact that I dont have 3G coverage (yet). I would like to challenge something said above: you *can* do big downloads, even on GPRS: yesterday I downloaded a 55MB file. I don't know if that qualifies as big. P@P and gaming I wouldn't know about.

My ISDN line cost me about R2500 per month altogether. My ISP hit me for another R150 per month, and I also had to have a GPRS 15MB bundle for mobility, which normally ended up around R600 per month because I was always exceeding the 15MB.
 
paying R2500 for isdn a month? ever heard of ADSL? even if u had to buy multiple gigs more u would pay less lol
 
I would like to challenge something said above: you *can* do big downloads, even on GPRS: yesterday I downloaded a 55MB file. I don't know if that qualifies as big. P@P and gaming I wouldn't know about
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You *can* also game on 3G [EDGE would be same] depending on the game. It is cheaper per hour to play WoW than browse an hour ...yes really. But this is limited to MMORPGs [You have a huge client side and only small amounts of data is actually uploaded/downloaded].

But i do believe 'big download' is actually more in the lines of 1GB+. For example the Dark Age of Camelot Client [yes another MMORPG game] which is a free [and legal] download is a cool 2GB ... Now that i will not attempt with 3G or GPRS [and it's nothing to do with the speed :P]
 
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Sorry, I should have been more clear with my post. I didnt mean that you couldnt do big downloads, I meant that it was not the right service for big downloads. Its just too expensive per GB for that sort of thing. Hell, I find the downloads outstanding - and I use the service for it all the time. But I dont pay :-)
 
If you are looking to use the internet for medium sized downloads during peak times, EDGE is still a good option.

Let's take a 10 Megabyte file for example. On dial-up, you get around 6 kilobyte per second. So to download the file on dial-up will take you about 10000/6 = 1666 seconds or 28 minutes. Telscum charges about R20 per hour during peak times. So this will cost you about R10 on dial-up.
If you use the R500 bundle, you pay 50c per MB, so this will cost you R10 as well, but you will download the file about 3 times quicker, and later with 3G about 5 times quicker.

Basically, if the connection is not downloading 100% of the time it is active, EDGE is cheaper than dial-up and more convenient.

I think it has been said before, but MTN needs to look at their bundles. There's a huge gap between the 100 MB and 1 GB bundles. How about 500 MB for R300 MTNbb?? This should be competitive with the competitor's offering! ;)
 
on the 1gig package at 50c / meg you would pay R5 for 10mb just btw ;-)
 
Clipse said:
paying R2500 for isdn a month? ever heard of ADSL? even if u had to buy multiple gigs more u would pay less lol
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According to Telscum, I might be able to get ADSL in 2006 :mad: Besides, for once I had the pleasure of telling them to shove it! :D
 
Clipse said:
on the 1gig package at 50c / meg you would pay R5 for 10mb just btw ;-)
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Thanx, Clipse, math was never a virtue of mine :o

Edit: anyways, this means that even in call more time, EDGE will cost the same if you're on the 1G package. If you take the 10 MB or 100 MB bundles, my (attempted) math holds and it is better during peak times to use EDGE, right?

We are probably the only country in the world where it is cheaper to use our cell phones, in some instances at least, for data than fixed line. See this topic for other countries' rates:
http://www.mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=19786
 
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Ok I just upgraded my contact from MyCall 100 to Business Time and have a Nokia 9300, what are the costs for me using edge/gprs ? and do i need to subscribe to something before this will be activated etc? I will most likely not use anything more then 10mb per month.
 
nexushub said:
Ok I just upgraded my contact from MyCall 100 to Business Time and have a Nokia 9300, what are the costs for me using edge/gprs ? and do i need to subscribe to something before this will be activated etc? I will most likely not use anything more then 10mb per month.
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Are you sure you won't need more than 10mb per month? That's seems like way to little for the powerhouse that be n9300. Especially when you start to realise what the phone can do and find out just how curious you are to test every function (including everything network related).

I thought 100mb would be enough for casual internet browsing. Turns out I could do with another 200mb, providing the stingy user (me that is) with a generous margin to play with, I hope.
 
Data Costs

What I have gathered from this thread:

For 1GB data/month Vodacom charges R 600 and MTN R 500

For 1GB data/month iBurst charges R469/R599 (without/with modum purchase)

For 3GB data/month Vodacom charges R1,800 and MTN R3,000

For 3GB data/month iBurst charges R599/R699 (with more free but at reduced speed)

For 10GB data/month Vodacom charges R6,000 and MNT R11,700

For 10GB data/month Sentech charges R640 (the old MW128 package)

I have read that Vodacom (and surely MTN by implication) want to get a major share of the mobile broadband market in the future.

So it's only at the very low end that the Vodacom and MTN prices are nearly competitive, anything above 1G and their prices just goes through the roof.

Am I missing something here? How can they even think of getting a major share of the broadband market if they are orders of magnitude more expensive?

If worldwide trends are followed it is clear that broadband speeds are going up and up, and by implication data usage. e.g. in Japan they are talking about 1Gb/s speeds. So if you use you Vodacom or MTN connection you can theoretically use up your whole month's worth of allocation (1GB) in 8 seconds!

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They can kill you but they cannot eat you.
 
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You cannot compare Vodacom and MTN broadband with Sentech and IBURST.WHY?.The cel networks have coverage every where even the 3G coverage is greater than Sentech and IBURST.Data rates on Vodacom and MTN will drop in months to come.CUSTOMER CARE AND DISTRIBUTION IS ALSO a thing to think of which Vodacom and MTN are pros in
 
Oh come on.

Firstly if I'm in an area that is covered by Vodacom, MTN, iBurst and MyWi, I couldn't care a rats ass if the overall coverage areas of the mobile phone companies are larger or smaller. I would go on price and speed. At the moment iBurst's speed is much higher even on the low end, and MyWi data costs are much cheaper (by multiple orders of magnitude).

Both iBurst and Sentech claims that they will cover the whole country in time to come, and if you look closely, the coverage range of Vodacom 3G and MTN 3G isn't all that much larger. maybe in time yes, but now, no.

These companies are going after the same broadband market, and I really cannot understand why you say I cannot compare them.

I agree that the customer care of iBurst and Sentech is absolutely pathetic, but if you look at Autopage there isn't all that much difference.

So what you are saying, if I'm a "middle of the road" to "high end" internet user that uses approximately 10 GB per month, I have to pay R11,000 per month more just for Customer Care and Distribution? I don't think so.
 
Huh Iburst and Sentech dont even have over 100 base station so how can they have better coverage than Voda3G and MTN3G.Atleast with the cell network when their 3G networks are down.You can still use GPRS/EDGE.Other networks if is down.You are DOOMED.....Look at Vodacom.They started after IBURST and Sentech but Vodacom has 20 000 3G users.Just know you will hear MTN will have more user than IBURST and Sentech.By the way the local cell networks already have licences for wifi and wimax.When this is implemented on our cell networks the wireless card will switch to the system that has the best coverage,capacity and the cheapest price.
 
Huh yourself dude.

Where did I state that iBurst and/or Sentech have a better coverage than Vodacom 3G and/or MTN 3G? I was making a price comparision for similar services. How can you get these two quite different concepts confused? It seems you have a bit of a problem in English comprehension?

OK, Let's just leave it at that. I know when I'm beaten.

It's like discussing cosmology with someone that believes the world is flat.
 
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