Vodacom CEO explains why mobile data expires

jannievanzyl said:
Then please show it to us. Sommer a quick photo of the last 1GB of data you bought.
Click to expand...

Difficult to show you the prepaid electricity I haven't yet used too. Must one put an oscilloscope on my data line to show you the last 1GB I used?

The point is you are selling by quantity of data and not honouring your side of things. You can blah-blah that we are all stupid, but you have dug your own grave on this one.
 
rubber_otter said:
What type of spectrum was allocated in Lesotho? And what would you say is sufficient to drive a national 5G network?
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100MHz in 3.5GHz, this is good

We need different allocations in different bands to properly roll out a decent service.

1. <1GHz band (700/800) to ensure wide rural coverage and deep penetration for IoT.
2. 2 - 6GHz (3.5, for example) to ensure backfill, extra cacity. This gives a nice balance of coverage and speed. Around 1 to 1.5Gb/s for 100MHz at the moment.
3. 20GHz< (28GHz in SA likely) to give those massive high-speed backhaul links. We've shown 17Gb/s using 800MHz of 28GHz.
 
jannievanzyl said:
100MHz in 3.5GHz, this is good

We need different allocations in different bands to properly roll out a decent service.

1. <1GHz band (700/800) to ensure wide rural coverage and deep penetration for IoT.
2. 2 - 6GHz (3.5, for example) to ensure backfill, extra cacity. This gives a nice balance of coverage and speed. Around 1 to 1.5Gb/s for 100MHz at the moment.
3. 20GHz< (28GHz in SA likely) to give those massive high-speed backhaul links. We've shown 17Gb/s using 800MHz of 28GHz.
Click to expand...

This clears up a lot, thanks you. Well, in this aspect though, it does.

I don't know if or where this has been discussed yet, but how does ICASA allocating these bands affect the expiry / cost of mobile data. I might be ignorant, but I don't see the correlation between the two.
 
jannievanzyl said:
100MHz in 3.5GHz, this is good

We need different allocations in different bands to properly roll out a decent service.

1. <1GHz band (700/800) to ensure wide rural coverage and deep penetration for IoT.
2. 2 - 6GHz (3.5, for example) to ensure backfill, extra cacity. This gives a nice balance of coverage and speed. Around 1 to 1.5Gb/s for 100MHz at the moment.
3. 20GHz< (28GHz in SA likely) to give those massive high-speed backhaul links. We've shown 17Gb/s using 800MHz of 28GHz.
Click to expand...

In a nutshell, right now you miss the 700/800 bands (which are mostly used for LTE/LTEA) in comparison with most other countries where it has already been allocated to operators? And then you can reduce your costs and the prices?

Or will we get the excuse that now that you have new bands, you have to invest more in installing new equipment and reconfiguring the network and can't afford to reduce prices?

3.5 and 20Ghz are not allocated yet in most countries.
 
rubber_otter said:
This clears up a lot, thanks you. Well, in this aspect though, it does.

I don't know if or where this has been discussed yet, but how does ICASA allocating these bands affect the expiry / cost of mobile data. I might be ignorant, but I don't see the correlation between the two.
Click to expand...

They have to make it expensive (and limit in other ways) so that the network doesn't go dead (like RAIN) or in the early days of the 10GBpm 8ta (Telkom) deal where the 8ta network died between 7pm to 10pm, due to too many active users.

Oh, and they have to make lots of profits to pay me my dividends that will make my pension fund grow, from suckers who just don't want to use other cheaper providers.
 
jannievanzyl said:
Buyig a six-pack is not a service. It's a product. The fact that you take it home and keep it there should tell you that.
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I suppose the issue is how you word what you sell.

'Buy 5GB data' - all sounds positive, you are getting something.

'Buy two months' access with a 5GB cap' - very negative, a limit on time, a CAP!! (vomit).

Dishonest marketing is what you have.
 
rubber_otter said:
This clears up a lot, thanks you. Well, in this aspect though, it does.

I don't know if or where this has been discussed yet, but how does ICASA allocating these bands affect the expiry / cost of mobile data. I might be ignorant, but I don't see the correlation between the two.
Click to expand...
It's not directly related but more spectrum will drive costs down and this will reflect in more attractive offers.
 
ArtyLoop said:
The fact that an ex-CEO here says milk doesn't expire says it all my friends... these people who run (or used to run) a cellphone cartel are so disconnected from reality its a laughable joke. That's what money and power does to the brain of Homo Sapiens- scary stuff!
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Milk may go off after you bought it, but it never expires in the context we're discussing between products and services. Don't confuse the two.

Or are you just arguing for the sake of arguing?
 
Last edited:
themba990 said:
Has anyone explained why airtime doesn't expire but data does?
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Airtime should actually expire as discussed in this thread. Like data, it's a service.

But - for whatever reason, long before my time - the commercial construct was based on a long 'rollover' period.
 
jannievanzyl said:
Airtime should actually expire as discussed in this thread. Like data, it's a service.

But - for whatever reason, long before my time - the commercial construct was based on a long 'rollover' period.
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so it is possible - if 1 service can have a long roll over period another service can as well.
you choose not to enable it plain and simple.
 
"We make money by selling a service we hope doesn't get used"

P.S. I ported from VC to Telkom earlier this year. 1GB data, 100 off-net minutes, unlimited WhatsApp, 10GB Wi-Fi and unlimited on-net calls for the price of a 500MB VC bundle
 
@jannievanzyl

While I appreciate engaging the community.We have to be straight up honest, voice revenue is dropping off a cliff, and you can't afford to drop data bundle prices or data bundle expiry.I previously mentioned in this thread and you missed that post. You mentioned that data prices has decreased year on year for the past 20 years, while prices have dropped. The last 3 years hasn't seen any 30 day data price cuts. In 2015 a 500mb 30 day data bundle was R99.00 in 2017 it was still R99.00 and 2018 guess what it's still R99.00 for the same bundle.

You have added night data/weekly ect but you haven't actually dropped Bundle prices at all other then reducing OOB price for the first 5mb, so where is this magic price reduction you are talking about, from what I have seen bundle prices have not changed at all.
 
isie said:
so it is possible - if 1 service can have a long roll over period another service can as well.
you choose not to enable it plain and simple.
Click to expand...

They chose not to enable it because it would increase the price of data to somewhere close to the OOB rate.

The bad behaviour on the part of mobile operators IMO is not the existence of the bundles, but the automatic switch over to OOB. Data should simply turn off when people run out.
 
Why does new data get used before old data, as happened to me a few months ago ???

As a result of this it was impossible to use the old data, and it expired.

Pure unethical greed !!!
 
jannievanzyl said:
Milk may go off after you bought it, but it never expires in the context we're discussing between products and services. Don't confuse the two.

Or are you just arguing for the sake of arguing?
Click to expand...

so if data was perishable, it would then be sold without enforced expiration? because then people would have to come back and buy more data anyway. eye sea.

use the voice frequency and run voip over the data network instead :D


so now youre saying, all access based services which are not a physical products expire? lies all lies. damned lies.
 
I think the lesson here is that people need to stop venting on the internet and do something in the real world.

ICASA is slow with allocations. Well the ISPs are not going to try speed them up with the golden goose it gives them.

Go protest, go smash their windows or burn their buildings. These issues are really only due to the lackluster "just kak en betaal" attitude in South Africa.
 
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