S.Africa's Vodacom says to cut call tariffs

[MaD]

Source - Reuters

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's top cell phone operator Vodacom will cut week-day peak call rates by up to 50 percent from August 28, the company said on Friday.

Vodacom, which is majority-owned by fixed-line operator Telkom, said a standard on-network call would cost 1.49 rand per minute for contract and pay-as-you-go customers.

Vodacom and rivals MTN and unlisted Cell C are under pressure from South Africa's communcication regulator ICASA to cut prices, which a consumer group has described as "obscene".

 

[stoke]

LOL.
NO WAY.
What ?
Infrastructure is paid for ?
Don't want to declare obscene profits ?
Oh - Okay. Cool. Now, howz about a refund then ?

 

[BTTB]

Strange that only Reuters has this snippet.
This is fairly newsworthy and it is supposed to happen on Monday as well.

 

[kaspaas]

Me falls of chair!

Current rate for vodacom-vodacom weekender is R1.80

 

[Moederloos]

URL looks good - does not look like its being spoofed. So, me falls over backwards. Must be something wrong with my beer, making me hallucinate

EDIT: just went to vodacom.co.za and could not see anything there - strange

 

[BTTB]

Vodacom price news hits telcos

Vodacom price news hits telcos
Aug 26 2005 03:57:39:333PM

Johannesburg - Premature news of Vodacom planning to cut call costs by up to 50% on Friday has sent telecoms stocks on the JSE tumbling.

In a media release - which was embargoed until 18:00 on Sunday - Vodacom announced a cut in call rates of up to 50% during the peak call time of 17:00 to 20:00 on weekdays.

A dealer said: "It looks like Reuters broke an embargo.

"If Vodacom is going to cut call costs, everyone else has to cut and all telcos have come under pressure."

He added that shares in companies that such as Altech, which owns Autopage, and Reunert, which owns Nashua Mobile, were also taking strain.

This will see a standard on-network call rate of R1.49 per minute for pre-paid and contract customers.

Shares in rival MTN Group dived to an intraday low of R45.20 following the report.

By 15:10, they were down 3.37% or R1.60 to R45.90.

Telkom (TKG), which owns 50% of Vodacom, was 2.02% or R2.50 weaker at R121.50. It reached an intradey low of R120.

Reunert (RLO) retreated 2.38% or one rand to R41 and Altech (ALT) lost 2.29% or R1.01 to R43.

 

[Mams]

Are Reuters lying? VODACOM SLASHES call charges....

Check this out:

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's top cell phone operator Vodacom will cut week-day peak call rates by up to 50 percent from August 28, the company said on Friday.

Vodacom, which is majority-owned by fixed-line operator Telkom, said a standard on-network call would cost 1.49 rand per minute for contract and pay-as-you-go customers.

Vodacom and rivals MTN and unlisted Cell C are under pressure from South Africa's communcication regulator ICASA to cut prices, which a consumer group has described as "obscene".

CAN THIS BE TRUE????????????
http://za.today.reuters.com/news/ne...RTRIDST_0_OZABS-TELECOMS-VODACOM-20050826.XML

I got my doubts...
No one else is reporting it and nothing on Vodacoms website!

I really hope Reuters are not pulling our legs.............
V3G: tell me its true!!!!Please!!

 

[RVFmal]

Has anyone noticed that the reduced rate is only between the peak times of 17H00 to 20H00?

I think a bit of an over reaction by everyone to be honest.

If it was for peak times period I could understand the fracas.

 

[Gambit]

communcication

You would think reuters used a spell checker.

 

[rpm]

Vodacom Slashes Call Rates In Peak Time

http://mybroadband.co.za/nephp/?m=show&id=614

 

[rpm]

Hi Mams

It is real See the main page (www.myadsl.co.za) for the full press release.

Regards,

RPM

 

[Axis]

Just phoned Vodacom Customer Care. They know nothing about this price cut!!

What gives???

 

[Siembambaa]

It's obviously not a coincidence that this is annouced soon after ICASA starting investigating cell companies for overcharging

 

[MaD]

still a very very good move

Has anyone noticed that the reduced rate is only between the peak times of 17H00 to 20H00?

I think a bit of an over reaction by everyone to be honest.

If it was for peak times period I could understand the fracas.

Any cut is a good cut and could lead to a knock-on effect.. If I were MTN/Cell C I would be devising plans this weekend on what kind of prices AND incentives to come up with.. can't wait to see what their think-tank has on the cards..

 

[Highflyer_GP]

here's the fine print

The new “Happy Hours” tariff applies to Vodacom-to-Vodacom calls, per second and per minute pre-paid packages as well as top-up and contract packages. It excludes Talk 500, Corporate 500, Talk 1000 and Messenger

during the peak call time of 5pm-8pm, on weekdays

now what about inter-network calls during all peak times? while it show's good initiative on vodacom's part, it proves what we have known all along - calls made between the same network cost basically nothing. verizon in the usa offer free calls to other verizon subscribers

 

[cybercloud]

Some news just won't wait for sunday, and they said it couldn't be done ;p

 

[Moederloos]

The initial reuters report said nothing about limited peak hours.
If it only applies to limited hours (17h00 to 20h00) then someone at reuters is going to be in BIG trouble for making the markets overreact like that.

Yep - true (however, it does say by UP TO 50%). Keep this quote here, in case Reuters changes the wording...

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's top cell phone operator Vodacom will cut week-day peak call rates by up to 50 percent from August 28, the company said on Friday.

 

[Highflyer_GP]

journalists will try and get information before anybody else does. i dont think they would be in trouble. it's the person who made this information available to them who is gonna get crapped on

 

[antowan]

Viva Las Vegas! Yeah baby! Just a shame that the call prices that are to be dropped are vodacom to vodacom only...

 

[RVFmal]

Any cut is a good cut and could lead to a knock-on effect.. If I were MTN/Cell C I would be devising plans this weekend on what kind of prices AND incentives to come up with.. can't wait to see what their think-tank has on the cards..

I agree, but if you look at the reaction it caused and what it did to share prices, it was a bit over the top.

It is a start and possibly the beginning of a bit of a price war between the cell companies. That can only be good as long as they don'y follow the lead of offering it in small windows in the peak times, but broaden their scope of where the discounts will apply.