Rain has lost its value proposition in the mobile market

Daniel Puchert

Daniel Puchert

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Rain Mobile mess

Rain has lost its value proposition in the mobile market and tacitly admitted that it is better to use AirMobile, Telkom, MTN, or Vodacom.

Rain recently launched a standalone 4G SIM offering with 2 GB of data, 60 minutes, and 100 SMS messages for R165 per month.
 
Been using AirMobile for a while now and quite happy with it.

No more having to contend with nonsense advertising popups about pseudo-English products when you just want to check your balance.

Interestingly enough the data works much better than it did when I was an MTN subscriber, even though AirMobile is an MVNO also using MTN's network.

The fact that I could port out from MTN to AirMobile completing the process within 15 minutes on a Sunday evening was very impressive.
 
Daniel Puchert said:
Rain Mobile mess

Rain has lost its value proposition in the mobile market and tacitly admitted that it is better to use AirMobile, Telkom, MTN, or Vodacom.
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This isn't exactly new news. IMO they lost their proposition a long time ago when they stopped offering the R50/GB option (with the ability to upgrade / downgrade from uncapped as needed, albeit with a month "notice" for the downgrade). Or even before that, when I hardly got 56kbps out over the December holidays.
Edit: Did RAIN ever start to offer eSIM?
 
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If you have the RAIN 5G package and you also happen to live close to/in high-density residential areas (block of flats, etc), you're going to have a bad time.
 
LOL. They could have cornered the market but made all the bad decisions. Their from 7PM uncapped would have suited me perfectly with a small data bundle for during the day but they did everything they could to make the product difficult to use.
 
LCBXX said:
If you have the RAIN 5G package and you also happen to live close to/in high-density residential areas (block of flats, etc), you're going to have a bad time.
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5G NSA. Their network is suffering under the constraints of 4G.
 
Apogee said:
Been using AirMobile for a while now and quite happy with it.

No more having to contend with nonsense advertising popups about pseudo-English products when you just want to check your balance.

Interestingly enough the data works much better than it did when I was an MTN subscriber, even though AirMobile is an MVNO also using MTN's network.

The fact that I could port out from MTN to AirMobile completing the process within 15 minutes on a Sunday evening was very impressive.
Click to expand...

No VoWIFI or international roaming is a deal-breaker though. It's sad because otherwise it would be a great product.
 
deweyzeph said:
No VoWIFI or international roaming is a deal-breaker though. It's sad because otherwise it would be a great product.
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Interesting.

MTN's coverage must be very patchy where you are for it to be a deal-breaker, unless there is another reason why that is so important?

As far as international roaming is concerned, to each is own.

As someone that regularly works with it, I am seeing that more and more users prefer to just activate an esim of their destination country upon their arrival there. No worries about roaming billing gone awry, and WhatsApp of course still works on the existing number.
 
Apogee said:
Interesting.

MTN's coverage must be very patchy where you are for it to be a deal-breaker, unless there is another reason why that is so important?

As far as international roaming is concerned, to each is own.

As someone that regularly works with it, I am seeing that more and more users prefer to just activate an esim of their destination country upon their arrival there. No worries about roaming billing gone awry, and WhatsApp of course still works on the existing number.
Click to expand...

Indeed, I live in an area of Cape Town where mobile signal is very patchy. VoWIFI is a life-saver.

As for international roaming, an esim from your destination country is great for data, but international roaming on your SA sim card is essential if you want to receive bank OTP's or 2FA tokens via sms.
 
deweyzeph said:
Indeed, I live in an area of Cape Town where mobile signal is very patchy. VoWIFI is a life-saver.

As for international roaming, an esim from your destination country is great for data, but international roaming on your SA sim card is essential if you want to receive bank OTP's or 2FA tokens via sms.
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They all use the apps now since SMS 2fa is insecure. It's a non issue.
 
deweyzeph said:
Indeed, I live in an area of Cape Town where mobile signal is very patchy. VoWIFI is a life-saver.

As for international roaming, an esim from your destination country is great for data, but international roaming on your SA sim card is essential if you want to receive bank OTP's or 2FA tokens via sms.
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Are any of SA's banks still using sms for 2FA?

Seriously wondering, but too lazy to Google. 😄
 
Apogee said:
Are any of SA's banks still using sms for 2FA?

Seriously wondering, but too lazy to Google. 😄
Click to expand...

Yes, surprisingly lots of websites and institutions still use sms for some form of 2FA or verification. There have been many times when I've been overseas that I would have been stuck if I hadn't have had international roaming and didn't have the ability to receive an sms on my SA sim card while overseas. Even the banks that have switched to in-app verifications still use sms for the initial verification if you ever have to reinstall your banking app.
 
BBSA said:
MTN signal works well outside my house, but it's terrible in some spots indoors. WiFi calling is a lifesaver!
Click to expand...

I live in the Deep South and my area is served by a single tower covering very mountainous and hilly terrain. It often used to go down during loadshoading too. If it wasn't for fibre and VoWIFI we'd have no cellphone service.
 
Apogee said:
Interesting.

MTN's coverage must be very patchy where you are for it to be a deal-breaker, unless there is another reason why that is so important?

As far as international roaming is concerned, to each is own.

As someone that regularly works with it, I am seeing that more and more users prefer to just activate an esim of their destination country upon their arrival there. No worries about roaming billing gone awry, and WhatsApp of course still works on the existing number.
Click to expand...
I travel every now and again . I just have an esim I topup for regional or global data
If I need a local number for incoming oroutgoing I activate a local number on skype
 
Bernoldus Niemand said:
Tyme bank lol
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Was about to say. Also some sites like Google or Binance will send an SMS OTP that more often doesn't work than it does. You can choose app based but it will still default to SMS if you don't.
 
The Wife uses one of their uncapped data products which is of course value for money. That said Rain's network speeds have never been anything to write home about. the price just made it bearable. Rain is perfectly positioned to pick up the mass lower income market if you are middle or upper class then the product is not for you.
 
Bad Ballie said:
The Wife uses one of their uncapped data products which is of course value for money. That said Rain's network speeds have never been anything to write home about. the price just made it bearable. Rain is perfectly positioned to pick up the mass lower income market if you are middle or upper class then the product is not for you.
Click to expand...
Is your wife part of the lower income market?
 
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