Rain has a roaming deal with Vodacom - and promises eSIMs "soon"

[Jan]

Rain's mobile roaming deal with Vodacom — and eSIM plans

Rain has confirmed industry speculation that it has signed a roaming deal with Vodacom to launch a national 4G mobile network with voice services.

Responding to questions from MyBroadband, Rain emphasised that it is building its own network infrastructure and is using Vodacom to handle “coverage gaps”.

 

[Pak Fa Fui]

Cell C scratches their heads

 

[Joseph matane]

Problem with this rainone is now rain cheapest offer is R559 twice the amount of previous cheapest 4G off peak unlimited data and rain might have 7000 4G active towers but only 2500 5G active towers, so this means nearly 50% of 4G subscribers will not just migrate to 5G because 5G is not yet available,
rain made mistake by assuming that all important subscribers has 5G and dropped 4G unlimited data plans. I wonder if this rainone was motivated by stats?
who thought (okay since 4G subscribers consume many GB per month let's move away from 4G and come with 5G first principle where 4G will be available as add-on only)
It is clear rain cares only about metro's subscribers not small towns subscribers from Mafikeng, Zeerust, Lichtenburg, Swartruggens, Koster, Derby, Coligny, Ventersdorp, Sannieshof, Vryburg, Taung, Wolmaransstad and Ottosdal because in North West we don't have decent 5G coverage we only have decent 4G coverage from rain and now rain don't care 4G network price plans, is second option.
My feedback is: subscribers need stand-alone 4G & 5G price plans we never requested family price plan were we group everything into 1, so ideal price plans is {off peak unlimited 4G data, all day unlimited 4G data and 5G basic home WiFi}

 

[DeTector]

Problem with this rainone is now rain cheapest offer is R559 twice the amount of previous cheapest 4G off peak unlimited data and rain might have 7000 4G active towers but only 2500 5G active towers, so this means nearly 50% of 4G subscribers will not just migrate to 5G because 5G is not yet available,
rain made mistake by assuming that all important subscribers has 5G and dropped 4G unlimited data plans. I wonder if this rainone was motivated by stats?
who thought (okay since 4G subscribers consume many GB per month let's move away from 4G and come with 5G first principle where 4G will be available as add-on only)
It is clear rain cares only about metro's subscribers not small towns subscribers from Mafikeng, Zeerust, Lichtenburg, Swartruggens, Koster, Derby, Coligny, Ventersdorp, Sannieshof, Vryburg, Taung, Wolmaransstad and Ottosdal because in North West we don't have decent 5G coverage we only have decent 4G coverage from rain and now rain don't care 4G network price plans, is second option.
My feedback is: subscribers need stand-alone 4G & 5G price plans we never requested family price plan were we group everything into 1, so ideal price plans is {off peak unlimited 4G data, all day unlimited 4G data and 5G basic home WiFi}

The 5G has 4G fallback, so you should still have 4G fixed where there is no 5G coverage.

I think they will soon add more options as they will be launching esim and as they are roaming on Vodacom they surely will capitalise.

Existing customer packages go on for the foreseeable future at the same price in the meantime though.

But I do agree, they need more than just the one option.

We'll have to wait and see what they come up with, but at least it brings competition to the market and that will hopefully make the consumer champion.

 

[Pak Fa Fui]

The 5G has 4G fallback, so you should still have 4G fixed where there is no 5G coverage.

Can you find that clause in writing
It sounds reasonable but Rain is not making it clear for consumers

 

[DeTector]

Can you find that clause in writing
It sounds reasonable but Rain is not making it clear for consumers

No, but a family member uses Rain 5G and if I force 4G on the router it connects and works fine. They did recently start allowing this due to the loadshedding killing some 5G towers. I just don't know what happens if you order to a non 5G address, but since there is no other options available now it should surely be allowed. Maybe @rain_mobile can give some clarity?