Vodacom reduces Voicemail2SMS tariffs by 40%

r35 pm is still too much.

Speaking of voicemail - what ever happened to the iPhone's visual voicemail?
 
From 1 November 2009, Vodacom Contract and Top Up customers will receive their voice messages via SMS for R35.00 per month.
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I did not know this service existed.

But, how would that work exactly?

Your phone rings, but you're in a meeting, so you have redirected to voicemail.
So, Vodacom does it's magic for a mere R35 a month.

There you are, in the meeting, they're discussing something that does not require your complete attention, the SMS arrives, you take a quick glance at the SMS, Vodacom23 spam.

Oh yay.
 
still too expensive

services like this should be free considering what they are ripping people for contracts
 
The problem for Vodacom is that South Africa is not the US or UK - English is first language for only about 3 million people in the country. They really need to cover the top two or three languages for the service to be valuable to the majority of their subscribers.

If I get an English voicemail, it is most likely an unsolicited sales call.
 
And another thing - how many people still use voicemail? I may not be representative of the entire subscriber base, but my voicemails are normally sales calls or people asking me to phone them back. So if I see you left me a voicemail (and I care) I normally just phone back and don't bother to pick up the message at all!

If you're running a small business I'm sure it's valuable, but not to me at all.
 
No benefit in lowering the price of something that's seldom used.
Doesn't impact a lot of people, makes them look good.
They still suck.
 
While there may be an argument that pricing may be too high, I don’t understand why this should be free. It uses network resources, cost money to implement and employees to manage the system.
 
rpm said:
While there may be an argument that pricing may be too high, I don’t understand why this should be free. It uses network resources, cost money to implement and employees to manage the system.
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Can't the same be said about Voicemail itself?
 
bwana said:
Can't the same be said about Voicemail itself?
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Good point - but I think at some point the basic subscription will not do any longer. One can currently buy a SIM for 99c, and get a fair amount of services with it free of charge. It is obviously funded from other revenue streams (like high call rates). I am in favour of lower rates across the board, but I dont want to subsidize services which I don't use. These services must be paid for somehow, and I think it is better to charge for services which people use and getting rid of the ones which are not sustainable.

I therefore dont want to pay high call charges to subsidize a service which may not be of much value.
 
Well Vodacom have cut their normal voicemail service to the bone. Messages are so compressed they are often inaudible, they only last for a day or two and you can't tell when the message was left by listening to it. The system also deletes you if you haven't used it for a month or two (?) as well, meaning you have to go through the setup process from the beginning..

Perhaps they hope people will switch to this.
 
And you'd probably get an sms that looks like this
jh jhjhjh uyik cmnbc b kik dfgr
 
murraybiscuit said:
maybe they can fund it from my cli subscription. i don't see why i've been paying that for the last 8 years!
:p
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Yes, that is a queer one. If you don't want it, there is no option to remove it. They have to itemise your phone use in order to bill you, so it's done for their benefit all the time.
 
Great !

And uhm, BTW, how many people use this again?

Nice try - now reduce data tarrifs.
 
Why not charge a (small) amount per voicemail?

I'd use this, because I hate listening to voicemail, but I don't get voicemail very often so there's no point me subscribing to it. I'd use it if there was a small charge each time, though.
 
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