The discussion with Uys ranged fairly wide and as such there are a few issues that he touched on that I would like to talk about.
Which issues were left out in this article??
Uys said that the price of data was going to fall, but that to engage in a wholesale price slashing would have a real impact on the quality of service that Vodacom customers experienced on its network.
A couple of suggestions would then be in order I guess:
- Tell us WHEN the price of data will fall, and by HOW MUCH
- Vodacom refuse to accept new data clients to ensure its current "high quality of service"
- Vodacom place ads in the media stating that its network can not support any new customers, but existing customers are at least assured of its current "high quality of service"
With a bottleneck on the network that already provides internet services to 9 million of its customers and which has 2 million regular users, you can understand why the company is not exactly keen to encourage even more people to use the network. The fact is that the more people that use the network the lower the quality of service will be. Encouraging power users to hammer the network by dropping costs will reduce the experience of the network for all users and I think we can all understand why Vodacom would not want that to happen.
A novel solution to the backhaul problem:
INCREASE your data rates, that will ensure you carry
LESS DATA on your network and it won't get "
hammered".
My impression is that Uys knows that broadband prices are higher than they should be but that the company is holding them steady until the network is ready to cope with additional load.
Rather
INCREASE the prices, the few customers Vodacom will have left will then pay for the network upgrades!
His argument that it is better to provide a steady 1Mbps to all consumers than 42Mpbs to one consumer is something that resonates with me. Leave the heavy downloads to the wired connection and give us a decent connection for our smartphones, tablets and laptops and you will keep most of your customers happy most of the time.
What about the customers who are perfectly happy with 1 Mbps at a lower price than 2 Mbps, etc? :wtf:
The other issue that I raised was that of contracts and why, in my view, contract customers seem to get the short end of the stick. Uys said that there have been, over the past year, increases in the amount of free minutes that contract customers have been entitled to as a way of increasing the value that they get from their contracts
.
I thought this article was about
MEGABYTES, not
MINUTES?
According to Uys, we can expect to see various contracts that offer: just a basic connectivity contract; a contract with a financed phone; and a contract with a subsidy and a financed phone. Essentially the consumer protection act allows you to cancel a contract at short notice with only limited recourse on the part of the service provider to penalise you. He said that if these new contracts aren’t already available they will be very shortly and that is good news for all of us.
Doesn't he know whether the contracts are available or not? EISH! :wtf:
I would have preferred that Vodacom (and the other networks as well) were more proactive in getting their contracts in line with what they will be forced to do when the consumer protection act comesi nto effect, but at least when it does happen we should all be a bit better off.
"
Vodacom" and "
proactive" in ONE sentence? You're so funny!
In conclusion: What changed your mind about Vodacom?
NOTHING in this article should change what you felt about Vodacom when you first published that letter.
I smell a rat.
PS: Can you help me get some reimbursement for the brilliant suggestions I offered above?
