Vodacom CEO explains why mobile data expires

[jannievanzyl]

Seriously Jannie arguing with you even when presented with evidence is like taking your "Johnson" and repeatedly smacking it with a blunt object it hurts the first few times but eventually you lose all sensation, you keep on doing for the heck of it.

Fact your 30 day bundles have not reduced in prices, you didn't have the new bundles at the time nor have they changed in prices either.You basically did sweet bugger all since 2014 other then reduce OOB and you recently reduced OOB for the first 5mb after which you apply normal rates.......A Large percentage, I would even hazard a guess vast majority of users are using 30 day bundles in general and they are the benchmark to be measured at as all networks have a min of 30 day bundles.Considering I pulled the information from your own website what do you have to say about that.

Geez, how many times must I answer you?

 

[Solarion]

It is what it is.

Data Expires

The End.

 

[whatwhat]

No one is forcing you to use vodacom.

Move to another provider that provides better deals. But most people don't because they are just lazy, or is a corporate account run by some admin person who doesn't give two shits about cost because it's the company's money.

 

[wizardofid]

Geez, how many times must I answer you?

Kindly point out were you actually answered the question ? You have only EVER retorted that the vodacom released said information, and when questioned with why 30 day bundles have not changed since 2014 you entirely ignored it. So I will ask the question why is vodacom lying about reducing data bundle costs when it has not reduced said bundles since 2014, the question will be asked until such time a satisfactory answer has been provided.

To point out you have not post ANY evidence to the contrary
You only ever deflected questions or ignored them entirely
You are only here in your own personal capacity
Your own replies has never directly implicated, omitted or owned up any wrong doing and only ever in defence.

While it's not the intention of bating or trolling vodacom or it's staff and being here only in your personal capacity you can't answer specific questions you are neither authorized or sheds a bad light on the company, you have to say what is the point then that said it is a simple enough question do you or don't you admit 30 day data bundle prices have changed since 2014, a simple yes or no will suffice......

 

[Mrlepen]

He won't answer why 1gig is still same price from that time since it's a cash cow for Vodacom .

Kindly point out were you actually answered the question ? You have only EVER retorted that the vodacom released said information, and when questioned with why 30 day bundles have not changed since 2014 you entirely ignored it. So I will ask the question why is vodacom lying about reducing data bundle costs when it has not reduced said bundles since 2014, the question will be asked until such time a satisfactory answer has been provided.

To point out you have not post ANY evidence to the contrary
You only ever deflected questions or ignored them entirely
You are only here in your own personal capacity
Your own replies has never directly implicated, omitted or owned up any wrong doing and only ever in defence.

While it's not the intention of bating or trolling vodacom or it's staff and being here only in your personal capacity you can't answer specific questions you are neither authorized or sheds a bad light on the company, you have to say what is the point then that said it is a simple enough question do you or don't you admit 30 day data bundle prices have changed since 2014, a simple yes or no will suffice......

 

[wizardofid]

No one is forcing you to use vodacom.

Move to another provider that provides better deals. But most people don't because they are just lazy, or is a corporate account run by some admin person who doesn't give two shits about cost because it's the company's money.

It's not about being lazy, it's about poor infrastructure, and bad planning. Vodacom politely installed an 4G tower about 1.5km from my house at the local church at the highest point in town about 6 odd months ago the tower is neither high enough as the equipment is directly surrounded by a tree line the town lies in a valley so the signal is only ever good in one spot, but as a loyal client I can't use the service and my equipment basically A white elephant, due to being remotely located vodacom is the most unreliable network here with an average down time of 2-3 times a month and average of a few hours at a time while 2g is pretty constant 3G and 4G is not.

Essentially had to stop using their services altogether Mtn has an average down time of 4 to 6 days in an entire year. MTN actually responds to coverage complaints and has more then once actually phoned me to check if services has been correctly restored.

Guess how many times vodacom phoned and responded to requests not a single time, so yes you can say I have beef with vodacom I have 4G but can't use their services.....

 

[marine1]

My chicks daughter was smashing through prepaid data on VC. Insane amounts of data and cash every bloody month. I begged and pleased for months to change. I said come to cell C but in the end went with Telkom. I'm saving about a grand a month and still getting more data. What does that tell you? Signal is fine. Voice quality great. Speeds great. If you are still with them it's your own bloody fault

 

[BBSA]

No one is forcing you to use vodacom.

Move to another provider that provides better deals. But most people don't because they are just lazy, or is a corporate account run by some admin person who doesn't give two shits about cost because it's the company's money.

Absolutely this, people will moan but will not move. Vodacom will milk them as long as they can, and I do not blame them.

 

[whatwhat]

It's not about being lazy, it's about poor infrastructure, and bad planning. Vodacom politely installed an 4G tower about 1.5km from my house at the local church at the highest point in town about 6 odd months ago the tower is neither high enough as the equipment is directly surrounded by a tree line the town lies in a valley so the signal is only ever good in one spot, but as a loyal client I can't use the service and my equipment basically A white elephant, due to being remotely located vodacom is the most unreliable network here with an average down time of 2-3 times a month and average of a few hours at a time while 2g is pretty constant 3G and 4G is not.

Essentially had to stop using their services altogether Mtn has an average down time of 4 to 6 days in an entire year. MTN actually responds to coverage complaints and has more then once actually phoned me to check if services has been correctly restored.

Guess how many times vodacom phoned and responded to requests not a single time, so yes you can say I have beef with vodacom I have 4G but can't use their services.....

Cool, well just keep on paying them!

Actually thinking of starting a virtual operator and charging R250 a gb and provide no service at all. South Africans would love this as they can pay more and complain more!

 

[Swa]

Of course not. Unfortunately a very large % of South Africans don't have your financial ability to buy a 2G or 4G phone.

But - as you know all the answers - here's a business opportunity for you; build an affordable 4G phone and sell it locally. Will need to be around $30. But I'm sure you can do it.

/Hint; don't bother with 3G, it'll likely be switched off before 2G.

And again it's not a false dichotomy. Vodacom is the first network I'm seeing with the mindset of switching off 3G first so that's a non argument. But that's Vodacom for you, worrying about the corporate customer that never want to move away from 2G instead of fulfilling your mandate to the SA public. Perhaps Icasa should investigate that but they are just as useless. Caring about a few hundred more for a 3G phone while everyone is being raped by high data charges. That's hilarious, LMFAO.

I've answered the question numerous times. But you just don't want to hear. MNOs have a very large number of different products and bundles, some of these are directly made available. To look at a listed bundle price is a very small part of the overall picture. It does not account for all the other ways you get data.

To get a single, overall view, you can use to compare YoY changes, you divide volume by revenue. This automatically takes ALL data offers into account and cuts through all the noise. Doing this shows something like 48% reduction in /MB pricing over the last 3 years.

You keep dodging the issue. Which other bundles are not directly available? The only options I have when dialing *111# are the usual ones. This is the standard list of bundles available from Vodacom. Looking at the total volume and revenue is just marketing hogwash to avoid the fact the actual bundles haven't decreased by any meaningful amount and even increased in some cases when contracts prices were increased.

Happy for you to come do this for the Vodacom (MTN and the other MNOs would love to contract your expertise as well, believe me).

You clearly have a good grasp of where these 2G devices are, how you'll migrate emergency services and other mission-critical applications running on 2G and have a plan to allow millions of people who cannot afford a phone over R300 to switch to mor expensive 3G or 4G devices. You'll also handle government, the department of communications and the regulator to convince them cutting services to a large percentage of South Africans is perfectly fine.

So, please send me your details and we'll get you cracking. Globally MNOs battle with this, so you've got a great opportunity here.

Global MNOs at least got to 'cracking' with this. Vodacom has no plan on the table. At least Telkom is in the considering stage. Never thought I'd give them a complement when it comes to moving with the times.

 

[Swa]

It is what it is.

Data Expires

The End.

It is what it is.
I moved to Cell C a decade ago. Data expires after a year.
The End.

 

[Swa]

Kindly point out were you actually answered the question ? You have only EVER retorted that the vodacom released said information, and when questioned with why 30 day bundles have not changed since 2014 you entirely ignored it. So I will ask the question why is vodacom lying about reducing data bundle costs when it has not reduced said bundles since 2014, the question will be asked until such time a satisfactory answer has been provided.

To point out you have not post ANY evidence to the contrary
You only ever deflected questions or ignored them entirely
You are only here in your own personal capacity
Your own replies has never directly implicated, omitted or owned up any wrong doing and only ever in defence.

While it's not the intention of bating or trolling vodacom or it's staff and being here only in your personal capacity you can't answer specific questions you are neither authorized or sheds a bad light on the company, you have to say what is the point then that said it is a simple enough question do you or don't you admit 30 day data bundle prices have changed since 2014, a simple yes or no will suffice......

2014: Customer buys 500MB for R99
2018: Customer buys 1024MB for R149

There, customer is paying 26.5% less

I wish I was this good at spin doctoring when I was young and wanted something.

 

[ArtyLoop]

So show where I'm wrong in my description of what is a service and what is a product and how access to the internet is not a service and I'll be all ears.

Saying you know "all the dirty tricks" is meaningless unless you expose them here, right?

The last time I tried to expose said dirty tricks on a public forum I was served at my work address and told to remove my posts. Nee, dankie! Not going down that road again. We can go back to pretending that you pretend that we don't know and we will pretend that we don't know, but we do know. At least I am not on your network, and for a good reason. It's called voting with ones wallet, Jannie

 

[isie]

The last time I tried to expose said dirty tricks on a public forum I was served at my work address and told to remove my posts. Nee, dankie! Not going down that road again. We can go back to pretending that you pretend that we don't know and we will pretend that we don't know, but we do know. At least I am not on your network, and for a good reason. It's called voting with ones wallet, Jannie

wait what ?

 

[wizardofid]

Cool, well just keep on paying them!

Actually thinking of starting a virtual operator and charging R250 a gb and provide no service at all. South Africans would love this as they can pay more and complain more!

You know voting with your wallet is the go to retort, without taking into consideration there might not be any thing else available. Until 2013 ish I was still only able to use either dialup or edge you could get ISDN but the costs were simply too high.MTN finally got 3G in 2014, vodacom finally got that 2 half years later.

To date there is no cellc or Telkom signal and is a best effort service when roaming no ADSL nor any other fixed internet access. While I can get wisp service the costs are reasonable but overall service would best effort service with fair amount of down time which means I have no choice in the matter at all. So even if I get the wisp I will still need to use mobile network for worked related stuff as the best speed I can get is 4mb and get triple that on MTN.

Iam not alone or unique in available net access limitation, so it would wise to come up with something else then keep on paying them...

 

[Speedster]

You know voting with your wallet is the go to retort, without taking into consideration there might not be any thing else available. Until 2013 ish I was still only able to use either dialup or edge you could get ISDN but the costs were simply too high.MTN finally got 3G in 2014, vodacom finally got that 2 half years later.

To date there is no cellc or Telkom signal and is a best effort service when roaming no ADSL nor any other fixed internet access. While I can get wisp service the costs are reasonable but overall service would best effort service with fair amount of down time which means I have no choice in the matter at all. So even if I get the wisp I will still need to use mobile network for worked related stuff as the best speed I can get is 4mb and get triple that on MTN.

Iam not alone or unique in available net access limitation, so it would wise to come up with something else then keep on paying them...

How to vote with your wallet. Step 1, move your cellular service to a more reasonably priced provider (read TM). Step 2 purchase VC shares with the monthly savings, thereby benefiting from the proceeds of their ludicrous pricing.

 

[jannievanzyl]

And again it's not a false dichotomy. Vodacom is the first network I'm seeing with the mindset of switching off 3G first so that's a non argument. But that's Vodacom for you, worrying about the corporate customer that never want to move away from 2G instead of fulfilling your mandate to the SA public. Perhaps Icasa should investigate that but they are just as useless. Caring about a few hundred more for a 3G phone while everyone is being raped by high data charges. That's hilarious, LMFAO.

You realise you just show your complete ignorance of South African demographics?

Once you understand that, come back and we'll carry on with this discussion. But that means you'll have to leave the warmth and comfort of your cozy pad. At least you can take your expensive smartphone with you while you drive around in comfort in your modern car so you check out the people who don't have a job, home or car and likely have not eaten today. (Guess they should eat cake if they can't afford bread??) But you believe they should rather buy a 3G phone over a 2G phone.

Your privileged education, that you take for granted, might also blind you to the fact that a large number of South Africans cannot read or write so have no ability to use that fancy smartphone you think they should buy so we can switch off the 2G network.

So, according to you; F the poor, unemployed and uneducated, because you want 2G switched of. Nice.

And, when we do switch off 2G and many critical services collapse and you start complaining how "bad things are in South Africa", just remember it was all your idea. :wink:

BTW, the job offer to come and sort this all out still stands. I noticed you've not taken it up yet?? Why??

Lastly, many countries will likely switch off 3G before 2G. Guess you're going to get ICASA to investigate them as well?

 

[supersunbird]

Don't worry, Swa is handing out 3G/LTE feature phones to all and sundry for free as we speak.

Go away Swa, I'm totally happy with my 2G nokia secondary phone.

 

[jannievanzyl]

Don't worry, Swa is handing out 3G/LTE feature phones to all and sundry for free as we speak.

Go away Swa, I'm totally happy with my 2G nokia secondary phone.

That new 3310?, any good?

 

[supersunbird]

That new 3310?, any good?

Perfect for receiving and making calls and SMSs. Battery lasts ages (charge it once a week), doesn't break every 6 months like the POS mobiwire things Makro sells.