I imagine that chargning difference amount would kill the billing system as GPRS,EDGE and 3G switch between each other seamlessly and trying to change charge rates as coverage changes would be a nightmare.
I think that this issue needs to be addressed. GPRS should not costs the same as HSDPA. When I download at 1.2Mb/s and some poor bugger downloads at 15Kbp/s and we both pay the same R2 then something just isn't right.
Not necessarily. GSM and UMTS are two completely different networks. To charge different rates for different networks is probably not very difficult although I suspect Vodacom would disagree with this as it took them 1.5 years to get the ppdb system in place. Almost all phones have the ability to manually switch to GSM and dual mode, so a person can choose to only use the lower data rate and I don't think anyone would complain if they suddenly get charged less when they get switched over to GSM.
15kbps? That would be a blessing from Vodacom. The speed's are more like 5kbps under load and 15kbps peak when nobody is using it like after 10pm.
Judging by coverage maps they seem to have the lowest EDGE coverage out of the 3 service providers but they are a younger company so it shouldn't come as a surprise. Their EDGE coverage is focused on the major city's and CDB's by the looks of things.
Vodacom coverage mainly in North West, Free State, Eastern and Western Cape, none in Gauteng.
MTN coverage very patchy and also not in Gauteng
Cell-C coverage mainly in Gauteng, Natal, and the Cape.
I think Cell-C has more people covered by edge than Vodacom and MTN. It doesn't help much for Vodacom to have edge coverage where there are the least amount of people. This seems contradictory to rolling the service out where there is the greatest demand for it.
I appreciate your selflessness despite me paying my R2/Mb to the dark side,but I don't think consumers are going to teach big corporates a lesson by having a small vodacom data exodus.
I read that somthing like 10% of cell phone subscibers(across all providers in SA) use data services. Clearly data services are not the money spinners in the cellular world and I doubt are going to be able to twist the arms of big corporates.
It is my understanding that a lot of people are moving over to Virgin especially from Vodacom since they don't offer them bundles. If this does not convince Vodacom to drop rates then competition means absolutely nothing and we might as well tell Neotel to pack up and leave.
I dont really want to argue with you because at the core I agree with you. I want reasonably prices bandwidth that is nice and fast with no hassles too.
I don't want to start an argument here as well. I am only driving my point home that having a slightly higher speed with Vodacom on 3G only does not justify the enormous extra expense. You might have R1200 to spare every month for data usage, but I don't.
Why don't we let the dancing meerkat entertain us and distract us from our concerns.
LOL. I think his time has come and gone. Can't touch this? Well, watch me take out my shotgun.
Because, maybe I've been lucky, but I haven't had problems with Vodacom. My phone and sim were delivered within 48 hours, as opposed to waiting weeks for a sim with Virgin with endless problems even once I'd gotten it. Its fine now but was a major mission before. And whenever I've tried to use it their internet service has been up, haven't gotten errors because it was "down" like I frequently have on Virgin. So at the moment I use both Virgin and Voda for data and Voda for my primary voice phone. Works fine for me, but personally I have experienced better service and reliability from Vodacom which to me justifies the extra expense. As people have said, its a personal choice.
Probably just lucky. I experienced data stalls on a daily basis on Vodacom. From the first day on Virgin I had a rather smooth ride. Only now my connection is starting to slow down during the day. Probably did too good a job with the conversion. Will see what happens when they upgrade their infrastructure which they are probably already doing hence the connection problems. If you haven't experienced any downtime on Vodacom then you haven't tried to connect at night cause it was down very frequently. It's a pity the debacle with the sim cards happened, but that's just one of the things that happens with a new entrant.
in this thread, I just managed to rack up 53.2MB an hour or so ago with my last R15.06 on Virgin before my balance was zero and it went dead. Funny thing is, when I disconnected it was over R1 again and it's still going now. 
Are you using GPRS or EGDE? What phone are you using?