Vodacom versus Gogga

For the guys thinking that 200 mil compensation is too much, its not only "compensation", but a punishment and deterrent to stop them or someone else from doing the same crap again.
 
MagicDude4Eva said:
So Gogga did not pay their bills for almost 3 years and now come crying? I don't agree with Vodacom's pricing, but any reasonable company would suspend your account if you fail paying bills within 3-6 months. Or am I missing the big picture. Carteblanche's reporting was really just one-sided (as usual), but I would think that a sensible thing to do was to either bump up their own consumer pricing or sue Vodacom. This should be really black and white - if Gogga has an agreement with Vodacom to honor the pricing, it's just a legal case, but from the sounds of it, Gogga did not have such agreements drafted or those lapsed (reminds me of complaining to the landlord, that the building next door is cheaper and asking for the same rent).
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Madman88 said:
Ya wait, let me increase your overheads by 1000% and take the same attitude when you cant pay anymore. They should have just lay down and die, isn't that right? :rolleyes:
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Sorry, MDE, I just don't understand your logic. VC appears to have increased the cost per Mb from 19c to R 1.36 (if I correctly recall). And it seems the only reason VC did this was because the Gogga model was successful and their business was taking off. So VC muscles in on Gogga's territory by skyrocketing the cost of data.

So now this is the second major piece of legal action against VC I am aware of. This one and the other one in the DRC. Is there a trend emerging here?
 
McT said:
Sorry, MDE, I just don't understand your logic. VC appears to have increased the cost per Mb from 19c to R 1.36 (if I correctly recall). And it seems the only reason VC did this was because the Gogga model was successful and their business was taking off. So VC muscles in on Gogga's territory by skyrocketing the cost of data.

So now this is the second major piece of legal action against VC I am aware of. This one and the other one in the DRC. Is there a trend emerging here?
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My logic is that I have sofar not seen any credible evidence that the 19c to R 1.36 was the case and this will hopefully surface at some point in time. There does not seem to be any hard facts from either party and everything seems to be "alleged", "speculated" and "appears" when you follow any news published about Gogga. Gogga themselves admitted that they struggled to keep up payments to VC for years - it puzzles me, that they decided to accept invoices @ R 1.36 per MB where they could have gotten this cheaper anywhere else. Makes me wonder why Gogga continued sourcing services from Vodacom and ultimately affecting their own customers. At the moment certainly sounds like it was their intention/hope to go through the Competition Tribunal to recover their losses (I also have not seen anywhere how much money Gogga claimed to have lost).

But seriously --- a company not accepting the higher prices but then still consuming the service for more than 2 years makes one wonder why they did that and what their motives were?

BTW: One could safely assume that they use about 1TB of data per month - this translates into R 1,4m per month for data. As a business this is really irresponsible and should not cost more than 20-30K p.m. - I guess this is were my logic seems to fail (as well as looking at their pricing which seems to be completely out of line, but then all the posters here will argue that this was necessary to fight VC's pricing)
 
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Here's a thought.

Why doesn't Gogga get their bandwidth from either MTN or Cell C as well?
They would not be as reliant on Vodacom.
 
Axis said:
Here's a thought.

Why doesn't Gogga get their bandwidth from either MTN or Cell C as well?
They would not be as reliant on Vodacom.
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They tried to do that. Vodacom wanted to charge them the new rate, just to use their network as carrier.
 
MyBroadband asked Vodacom to shed light on this debacle, but Vodacom merely said that their official position is that the matter is “sub judice and we therefore can't comment”.
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Oldest line of BS in the book. The sub judice rule only applies to criminal proceedings. This would be a civil action.
 
MagicDude4Eva said:
My logic is that I have sofar not seen any credible evidence that the 19c to R 1.36 was the case and this will hopefully surface at some point in time. There does not seem to be any hard facts from either party and everything seems to be "alleged", "speculated" and "appears" when you follow any news published about Gogga. Gogga themselves admitted that they struggled to keep up payments to VC for years - it puzzles me, that they decided to accept invoices @ R 1.36 per MB where they could have gotten this cheaper anywhere else. Makes me wonder why Gogga continued sourcing services from Vodacom and ultimately affecting their own customers. At the moment certainly sounds like it was their intention/hope to go through the Competition Tribunal to recover their losses (I also have not seen anywhere how much money Gogga claimed to have lost).

But seriously --- a company not accepting the higher prices but then still consuming the service for more than 2 years makes one wonder why they did that and what their motives were?

BTW: One could safely assume that they use about 1TB of data per month - this translates into R 1,4m per month for data. As a business this is really irresponsible and should not cost more than 20-30K p.m. - I guess this is were my logic seems to fail (as well as looking at their pricing which seems to be completely out of line, but then all the posters here will argue that this was necessary to fight VC's pricing)
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I see that you do have a point, MDE. There are a few unanswered questions. Gogga could have moved their business to MTN and given their client base new sim cards on a new VPN/APN. There cost of this exercise would have far outweighed their current problem. Maybe coverage played a role in this decision, i can only guess.

But the bottom line is VC did bully and attempted to be uncompetitive like a little devil. I sincerely hope Gogga wins, although in retrospect they had alternatives.
 
VC realised that they could get more money by doing this... so they did. Its a cut throat world and business is survival of the fittest!

It is sad for Goga, but as previously mentioned they DID have other options.

Shame on you VC.
 
Ok... so you have a couple of thousand clients, and you decide to switch them to a different service provider... What costs do you think that would entail? Providing each one with a new sim card, having it delivered to them, setting up new management interfaces for the new service provider's sim cards... Doesn't that validate staying with Vodacom, hoping they'd sort out their ****?
 
Gogga = Fail - where was the redundancy? - IT 101
Gogga failed their customers by not providing a back-up network. Surely once the company saw the increase in their subsciber base and profits, they could have provisioned funds for a back-up provider.

Knowing that they provided internet access to emergeny services (e.g. Pharmacall), it was fail on their side. The real loser here is the customer.

This is a capitalist world, businesses can charge any amount, you decide if you want to pay.
Gogga was aware for years that VC was trying to force them out of the market yet Gogga took no action to protect its self or and more importantly its customers.
 
grimstoner said:
And the employees? What do you do when your business is no longer profitable?

You cut salaries.
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"Gogga took no action to protect its self or and more importantly its customers.
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"its self" also covers the employees -
Gogga was in bed with VC hence the 49% stake owned by VC Ventures......a start-up would nomally leverage off a "big business" partner and once established, charter a path to independence.
 
turisimo said:
Gogga = Fail - where was the redundancy? - IT 101
Gogga failed their customers by not providing a back-up network. Surely once the company saw the increase in their subsciber base and profits, they could have provisioned funds for a back-up provider.

Knowing that they provided internet access to emergeny services (e.g. Pharmacall), it was fail on their side. The real loser here is the customer.

This is a capitalist world, businesses can charge any amount, you decide if you want to pay.
Gogga was aware for years that VC was trying to force them out of the market yet Gogga took no action to protect its self or and more importantly its customers.
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Fistly they were a reseller of Vodacom data, they were relying on the redundancy of the Vodacom network. Just like Virgin is just a reseller of Cell C airtime.
Gogga had an agreement with Vodacom to this effect, the exclusivity was the reason why they got such good data prices.

No Vodacom can not just change the deal like that, its anticompetitive practice... something that is not allowed in a capitalist system.
 
grimstoner said:
Ok... so you have a couple of thousand clients, and you decide to switch them to a different service provider... What costs do you think that would entail? Providing each one with a new sim card, having it delivered to them, setting up new management interfaces for the new service provider's sim cards... Doesn't that validate staying with Vodacom, hoping they'd sort out their ****?
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Like mentioned, their total bw cost should have been below R50k (heck, bump it up to over R100k), but they are now charged over R1m...
I'm no maths genius but I would say that they would have had lost of spare change left over on their first month's savings?
 
Nerfherder said:
Fistly they were a reseller of Vodacom data, they were relying on the redundancy of the Vodacom network. Just like Virgin is just a reseller of Cell C airtime.
Gogga had an agreement with Vodacom to this effect, the exclusivity was the reason why they got such good data prices.

No Vodacom can not just change the deal like that, its anticompetitive practice... something that is not allowed in a capitalist system.
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Such good prices = regular retail price as mentioned on Carte Blanche....
Reseller of Vodacom data = even easier just resell another provider's data - (do not renew any exclusivity agreement)
Vodacom did change the deal like that, if it was not allowed then it would have been a cut a dry legal matter and resolved after the very first (higer price) invoice issued by VC.
 
turisimo said:
Such good prices = regular retail price as mentioned on Carte Blanche....
Reseller of Vodacom data = even easier just resell another provider's data - (do not renew any exclusivity agreement)
Vodacom did change the deal like that, if it was not allowed then it would have been a cut a dry legal matter and resolved after the very first (higer price) invoice issued by VC.
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The good prices were not the retail prices... how would they have made any money ??? They were bying in bulk at a cheaper rate (like others)

Also who even said that another provider like MTN even offered them a resellers deal, thats a lot to assume.

Guess what, it is a cut and dry legal issue... Vodacom just has the time and money to make it go away.
 
lets just wait and see how the court battle draws out....I am sure the technicalities of their agreements would come to light.
 
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