Reading the article, while drunk, it looked good and sound. But from years of following this forum, the comments are where you get your real information. Thank you all for your fantastic info - saved me reading this again when sober - and I can rest assured this community will have the back of all, and the individual premium-paying consumer.
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Question of the Day: Will you be subscribing to the new Disney+ R49 streaming package?
Please don't take away my choice
- Thread starter Jamie McKane
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richjdavies
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It's a complete puff piece again. Thus why no 'show comments'. Whos paying for this stuff?
It's not balanced, and it's selective in its use of data. Very very poor lobbying dressed up as terrible journalism.
Come on mybb... This is why we have so poor competition.
It's not balanced, and it's selective in its use of data. Very very poor lobbying dressed up as terrible journalism.
Come on mybb... This is why we have so poor competition.
NeoAcheron
Well-Known Member
Utter bullshit from the SA networks. You pay €8 for unlimited data in the Netherlands and then you get 30 minutes of call time with that for free, and you can use your phone anywhere within the EU without additional costs.
The speed isn't great, but it is fast enough for browsing and streaming music. If you want speed, you can connect to any of the thousands of free unlimited WiFi networks.
The South African market is monopolized for the benefit of their expansion into the rest of Africa, and you get to pay a premium for **** service.
The speed isn't great, but it is fast enough for browsing and streaming music. If you want speed, you can connect to any of the thousands of free unlimited WiFi networks.
The South African market is monopolized for the benefit of their expansion into the rest of Africa, and you get to pay a premium for **** service.
My feelings exactly. I've been toying with the idea of rewriting the intros for my response article(s) on this as a bit of a message to the networks and a disclaiming statement for the public reading. However, the populist nonsense in the CompCom report left so much ground to cover, I couldn't justify leaving that in the copy.
Anyway... The MNOs, specifically Vodacom and MTN, helped make this bed. For years people have been complaining about OOB rates and expiring data. Article after article we published on MyBroadband highlighting the complaints about the R2/MB OOB rate. The frequency of comments on this platform, social media, radio complaining about "disappearing"/expiring data increased.
Rather than address the underlying issue, the operators tried to explain away their reasons for doing it. Maybe the reasons were 100% justified, but the vehement complaining was one of several canaries in the coal mine.
#DataMustFall happened. Completely inaccurate information, completely ludicrous demands, but still... a canary in the coal mine.
Finally, it started happening. The political tide had turned and Vodacom and MTN became everyone's convenient political punching bags. It cuts across culture and creed --- easy political points for anyone doing the punching.
ICASA's EUSSCR happens. The writing is on the wall for OOB, but instead of looking like heroes for doing away with it themselves (like Afrihost or Telkom Mobile), they look like fatcat crybabies by taking ICASA to court over the deadline. (Incidentally it was Cell C that launched the legal action, and not Vodacom and MTN, but it's all the same in the eyes of the somnambulant public. (Points if you get that reference.))
Now, out comes the CompCom's report telling everyone exactly what they want to hear. You are being fleeced. Vodacom and MTN are the new apartheid regime, oppressing us all, but the poor most of all.
Except it's not true, is it? It's just demagoguery dressed up in pro-consumer clothes, with data cherry-picked to draw the conclusions they want to draw.
TL;DR:
1. Is the CompCom's provisional report full of fail: Yes.
2. Is it Vodacom and MTN's own fault that there is little or no sympathy for them: Also yes.
Dave
Honorary Master
Marius Flash
Expert Member
This
richjdavies
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What specifically isn't true? All the points you make about OOB and unhappy customers are a symptom of lack of competition.
The regulators are there to protect consumers, and they are finally starting to take some (limitied, late).action. They aren't there to protect investors, companies or jobs necessarily. That's the job of politicians, courts, unions
Jase
Executive Member
My 2cents offering as a comparison.
I currently work in Mongolia and I usually Spend around R330pm (Current exchange rate) on 60gb (plus an extra 1.5GB on a current promotion) of prepaid data . The network is 4G and the speed where I am at (Not in a city / town) varies between 20 to 40Mbps up and down.
I initially thought how could they be so cheap but considering that they only have a population of 3 million of which 50% lives in their capital and their smaller towns have under 100k in numbers, I guess their overheads are lower due to less infrastructure.
Edit:
I just saw that they have an added options for: Unlimited Netflix for around R82, Unlimited Apple Music/Soundcloud/Deezer for R27 and unlimited data on various mobile games for R27 (I think this is a hit as I see a ton of people playing Pubg).
Here is their 4G coverage map (I left out the 2/3G/WiFi Hotspots as it would clutter the map).
I currently work in Mongolia and I usually Spend around R330pm (Current exchange rate) on 60gb (plus an extra 1.5GB on a current promotion) of prepaid data . The network is 4G and the speed where I am at (Not in a city / town) varies between 20 to 40Mbps up and down.
I initially thought how could they be so cheap but considering that they only have a population of 3 million of which 50% lives in their capital and their smaller towns have under 100k in numbers, I guess their overheads are lower due to less infrastructure.
Edit:
I just saw that they have an added options for: Unlimited Netflix for around R82, Unlimited Apple Music/Soundcloud/Deezer for R27 and unlimited data on various mobile games for R27 (I think this is a hit as I see a ton of people playing Pubg).
Here is their 4G coverage map (I left out the 2/3G/WiFi Hotspots as it would clutter the map).
Attachments
Gr8 but wtf would want to spend too much time there...a week maybe ye....
Jase
Executive Member
I spend 4 weeks at a time up here and am planning to do a bit of touring. Quite a bit to see especially if you like the outdoors.
Sure I said it half tongue in cheek... I'm sure it's amazing place to visit. Wild and untamed, but it's the live and work part that wouldn't appeal to most I guess, including myself.
Jase
Executive Member
True, it's remote, under developed and the capital is just a huge ball of smoke from all the coal being burnt in the winter. It is peaceful though, the people are friendly and the food is not bad. Oh and if I order stuff from China, it would most likely arrive here unlike our postal service back in SA.
...Oh and if I order stuff from China, it would most likely arrive here unlike our postal service back in SA.
Very true. As well as traveling to, a few hours flight, not half way across the universe from tip of Africa
On that point we disagree. Cell C and Telkom are competitors to Vodacom and MTN. Cell C did not do away with OOB, but did experiment with reducing OOB pricing some years ago. They promptly hiked OOB prices after Alan Knott-Craig stepped aside due to his health, IIRC.
Telkom, on the other hand, did not have OOB data billing on its network until its FreeMe contracts. If you are on prepaid and your data runs out, you get redirected to a captive portal and asked whether you want to go OOB or buy another bundle.
Afrihost Mobile, which runs on MTN's network, does not have OOB except on request (last I checked).
The issue isn't lack of competition... South Africans just aren't voting with their wallets. Or maybe we are and we're saying that we prefer more expensive networks and will put up with OOB to be on a the bigger, better network. (FWIW, I switched to Telkom Mobile. It's not perfect, but I wanted to support their stance on OOB. It has its frustrations, but I'm a mostly-happy customer.)
My point (which I made in a different article, published over the weekend) is that the remedies suggested by the CompCom could very well end up hurting consumers if they're not careful.
richjdavies
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In general I agree with you on this. It is bad that consumers aren't voting with their feet - although many consumer are 'locked' in to contracts etc (that is indeed of their choosing). What really hurts though is when the operators do things that would just not be acceptable in a competitive and/or well regulated market:
1. Hiking prices mid contract... can't even contemplate these in most countries... no idea how this doesn't make the contract null and void!
2. WASPs, WAPs etc...
3. Out of Bundle regulation basically just not working (Cell-C decided that even though I NEVER told them I wanted OOB, despite 5 SMS before the change in March, they decided to change my defaults anyway... R100 down the drain before I realised)... Telkom for me... just as soon as I can RICA, then Port at a convenient time when I don't have too much credit on my SIM Etc... (I know, I'm my own worst enemy!)
quovadis
Honorary Master
Or quite possibly because the two dominant players have the resources to have a retail footprint much larger than the two smaller competitors in the informal market struggling to make ends meet and can’t afford R149 for 1GB for 30 days but will pay a massive premium being forced to pay per day or on an adhoc basis for the same data volume but over multiple purchases. The argument that these companies make in defense of 1GB used over 30 days vs 30mb per day and the pricing difference is indefensible IMO.
I don’t think people understand how much data prices hits the economy. The is a very tight correlation of data prices vs GDP in IT sector so much so that you have to wonder who paid who bribes to keep the status quo.
In places in Africa where their gov told networks to either make it cheap or bugger off because someone else will come, IT sector has taken off albeit their infrastructure(road, rail, housing etc) is far from developed compared to SA. This makes me wonder how much it’s costing us per year..
I use Afrihost mobile and they added data transfer (no rollover yet) which makes my life easier as I now buy data for my primary device and distribute data from there.. the minimum to be on APN is free so that helps combined with Afrihost Plus (double data, double topup, no cap/fixed network) and using for Fibre at home makes it a great product set for me.
@Jan you must remember that SA is an odd market. This is also the country where voters would rather not vote than vote in opposition to a party they disagree with due to corruption, fraud, impact on economy etc.
I often think that this shows how beaten down South Africans are due to facing a lot bigger issues they deal with day to day that they expect the gov to do the right thing for them. Of cause gov is on a self enrichment programs under zuma so no surprise things slipped and a VERY few business do things for the good of others in SA. You will notice a lot of the demand for something better is coming from younger folk.. I mean the whole data pricing issue, the negative impact etc was discussed at least a decade ago and the networks flatly killed off discussions behind closed doors with ICASA. A decade later brave countries in Africa who told operators to leave if they won’t comply are a kept better for it.
So no..will it hurt consumers? I think it’s hurt us already and we now debating whether it’s better to keep taking a beating given we know the existing impact.