What am I missing?

E

emmanuel

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 30, 2005
Messages
290
Reaction score
0
Say Vodacom changes their 3G/HSDPA products range and roll them all into one product, say Vodacom xyz.

Say Vodacom sell their datacard/modem for R350.

Say they charge R150/month including first upto 1 GB for the "Vodacom xyz" product.

Say, when 800MB (or as client specifies) of the 1GB is reached, they have an prepaid auto-topup option, like WebAfrica has, for say R70/GB which then adds however many GBs the client preselects. Say the topup is optional, and debited against client's credit card.

Say, in any month for clients using prepaid topup option, after first 1 GB, only prepaid topup is rolled over.

Why would this not work? Why would Vodacom not have more clients than they can manage.

Please help me, what am I missing, why has none of Vodacom or MTN not got this product? :(
 
emmanuel said:
Say Vodacom changes their 3G/HSDPA products range and roll them all into one product, say Vodacom xyz.

Say Vodacom sell their datacard/modem for R350.

Say they charge R150/month including first upto 1 GB for the "Vodacom xyz" product.

Say, when 800MB (or as client specifies) of the 1GB is reached, they have an prepaid auto-topup option, like WebAfrica has, for say R70/GB which then adds however many GBs the client preselects. Say the topup is optional, and debited against client's credit card.

Say, in any month for clients using prepaid topup option, after first 1 GB, only prepaid topup is rolled over.

Why would this not work? Why would Vodacom not have more clients than they can manage.

Please help me, what am I missing, why has none of Vodacom or MTN not got this product? :(
Click to expand...

Say Vodacom goes out of business, selling a product way below cost.

While you're at it, mail Mercedes and ask them to sell their cars for, say, R5000. They'll soon have more clients they can manage.
 
emmanuel said:
Say Vodacom changes their 3G/HSDPA products range and roll them all into one product, say Vodacom xyz.

Say Vodacom sell their datacard/modem for R350.

Say they charge R150/month including first upto 1 GB for the "Vodacom xyz" product.

Say, when 800MB (or as client specifies) of the 1GB is reached, they have an prepaid auto-topup option, like WebAfrica has, for say R70/GB which then adds however many GBs the client preselects. Say the topup is optional, and debited against client's credit card.

Say, in any month for clients using prepaid topup option, after first 1 GB, only prepaid topup is rolled over.

Why would this not work? Why would Vodacom not have more clients than they can manage.

Please help me, what am I missing, why has none of Vodacom or MTN not got this product? :(
Click to expand...
:confused: say what?

If I correctly understand part of your post, you're asking why Vodacom and MTN don't have an auto-topup facility to prevent OOB charges, is this interpretation correct?
 
vodacom3g said:
Say Vodacom goes out of business, selling a product way below cost. While you're at it, mail Mercedes and ask them to sell their cars for, say, R5000. They'll soon have more clients they can manage.
Click to expand...
Is that only the A Class Mercedes for R 5000-00 or all models :D

BTW: We are just waiting for feedback from Vodacom to do an article on the costs involved in rolling out their 3G/HSDPA network etc. It may shed some light on their current charges and why they can not simply drop bandwidth rates. Not that I will say no if they give me a free modem and drop bandwidth rates to R 70 per GB :D
 
rpm said:
Is that only the A Class Mercedes for R 5000-00 or all models :D

BTW: We are just waiting for feedback from Vodacom to do an article on the costs involved in rolling out their 3G/HSDPA network etc. It may shed some light on their current charges and why they can not simply drop bandwidth rates. Not that I will say no if they give me a free modem and drop bandwidth rates to R 70 per GB :D
Click to expand...

I think it's a good idea and will be looking forward to this article.
 
vodacom3g said:
Since it's for the consumers to 'say' what the price should be, let's make it all models. I'll take 2 SL500 AMG's for R5K a pop......:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Sounds like what they're doing in Zim at the moment, working out really well there. :rolleyes:
 
While I'm not quite sure what the original topic was about, I'm sure we have now strayed very far into off topic territory...
 
@emmanuel, perhaps you could return to clarify what you meant at the start of this thread...?
 
In 1887 British Prime Minister Robert Gascoyne-Cecil appointed his nephew as Minister for Ireland. Not only was the nephew pretty unpopular, but he also kept referring to the Prime Minister as 'uncle bob', hence 'bob's your uncle' = you're all set.
 
ic said:
@emmanuel, perhaps you could return to clarify what you meant at the start of this thread...?
Click to expand...
Sure. I feel no matter all the crit I got for my "say this, say that", in not too long from now, some of my "say" predictions will pan out.

At this time, it seems we're being overcharged and provided packages that I have to predict how much I'll use up front. If I go over that, the out of bundle is say R1.20/mb which is expensive and out of proportion when calculated for a gig.

So, I suggest one package with an reasonable amount per gig. And what I don't use rolls over, like petrol in my tank.

Our prices are unnecessarily restricted.

Remember when it was R50/mb. I already knew then it was overpriced. The networks wanted nothing of it. Now it's lower, but still not where it'll be fairly soon. Take the recent drop in price and they're still business.

So mark my words, several of my "say's" will pan out--and not in too long a from now. :)
 
vodacom3g said:
While you're at it, mail Mercedes and ask them to sell their cars for, say, R5000.
Click to expand...
It's not the same. Your comparison is off the mark.

The same bit/byte/mb/gb is sold for different prices--in an extremely wide price range. If I recall on the lower end of the scale, 20c and on the higher end of the scale R2.00. That is 10 times the price for the same thing.

And this is where I have the issue.

Make your own calculations and see for yourself.

If you look carefully at my proposal [with a clear mind] you'll see all I did was make a fair price for modems [which'll come anyway] and a fair price per any GB [which'll come anyway]. All I'm proposing is bring it sooner rather than later. :)
 
emmanuel said:
It's not the same. Your comparison is off the mark.

The same bit/byte/mb/gb is sold for different prices--in an extremely wide price range. If I recall on the lower end of the scale, 20c and on the higher end of the scale R2.00. That is 10 times the price for the same thing.

And this is where I have the issue.

Make your own calculations and see for yourself.

If you look carefully at my proposal [with a clear mind] you'll see all I did was make a fair price for modems [which'll come anyway] and a fair price per any GB [which'll come anyway]. All I'm proposing is bring it sooner rather than later. :)
Click to expand...

Your price for modems are out by a factor of nearly 10. While we all would love to see modems at R300 (it will get more people onto the network!) it's not going to happen soon. The technology is just too complex and evolves too rapidly.

I'm personally all for a speed-based price differential, but consumers (including this forum) asked us to drop it and we complied.

The price ranges are based on your ability to commit upfront and is standard practice in any business. The more you buy, the better the price. As I always say: Business-101.

My comments was based mostly around your assumptions on what pricing should be when you have no real idea what the cost to deliver is. Therefore, in the same vein, we can assume it costs MB say R3000 to build one car and they can therefore sell it for say R5000.

I've said it often before and will restate, the R50/Mb (or rather R40/Mb) was calculated using accounting principles of good business practise. Think what that means for the current pricing.
 
vodacom3g said:
While we all would love to see modems at R300 (it will get more people onto the network!)
Click to expand...
This is a prohibiting factor.

vodacom3g said:
The price ranges are based on your ability to commit upfront and is standard practice in any business. The more you buy, the better the price.
Click to expand...
Why should I know up front? Another prohibiting factor.

vodacom3g said:
The more you buy, the better the price.
Click to expand...
Not so. If I'm on a 1GB contract and I go over to 3GB that month look at what GB 2 & 3 would cost me, I dare you. Thus for the 2nd & 3rd which is more than 1 GB, thus I'm buying more, but look at the cost of it. Another prohibiting factor.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X