Why only one prepaid data budle a month?

[Dolby]

I know it's mentioned in another post, but's a little ridiculous only allowing 1 SMS bundle loaded per month.

That's the reason I purchased a 2nd SIM : on my original SIM I loaded a 10MB bundle to test, which subsequently ran out after a few days. Instead of waiting and pay R2/MB, I decided to buy a new SIM card altogether. I will keep doing this as I need.

My question : Why do they do this? Surely at R4.95 for a prepaid SIM, you must be losing on the SIM card - hoping to gain on phone calls? On top that, it's quite frustrating for the customer to swop. I can see by the end of the year, I'll have close on 10x MTN SIM cards/cell numbers! With you losing, and us being frustrated, why not change?

 

[ajax]

I am already using my 4th sim. Hopefully I won't exceed a 6th!
As soon as the first sim's 30 days expire, I will recycle all my sims

But yes, I agree with Dolby. Come on MTN, let us load more than 1 bundle.
If it's too difficult/schleppy/costly/time consuming to implement, as a start, let the new bundle "erase" the previous bundle. Like starting from scratch again for 30 days. Surely the system can be adapted for this easily?

If MTN won't do this, chances are "someone else" may do this first

 

[nicroets]

Yep, MTN really screwed this pricing model up. Obviously they try to entice you to buy more megs than you need, which you then forfeit. But studies of economics have shown comsumers aren't dumb !

A much better solution would be for them to a staggered pricing strategy, e.g. per calcander month you pay R2/meg for the first say 10 megs, then R1.50 for the next
20 megs, dropping at each sweet spot until it gets down to R0.40/meg or so.

 

[Dolby]

Or simply letting us load a new bundle when the existing one ends.

I mean they MUST not like the fact that we're buying extra SIM cards at all! I'm almost certain they must be making a loss on that. The card is R4.95, has expensive packaging, colour books inserted, distributing of the cards to shops, labour when the card is manufactured. Basically, we're now screwing MTN - albeit with hassles

 

[zaphod]

I mean they MUST not like the fact that we're buying extra SIM cards at all! I'm almost certain they must be making a loss on that. The card is R4.95, has expensive packaging, colour books inserted, distributing of the cards to shops, labour when the card is manufactured. Basically, we're now screwing MTN - albeit with hassles

No, I think it makes economical sense to MTN to sell as all these SIM cards.

It increases their number of subscribers. This looks good on paper and has a positive influence on their share price.

 

[ajax]

No, I think it makes economical sense to MTN to sell as all these SIM cards.

It increases their number of subscribers. This looks good on paper and has a positive influence on their share price.

Hmm, interesting point Zaphod, but the other side of the coin is that this will bring down their average revenue per user. I've heard this figure quoted again lately. Seems the networks don't like it when this figure drops.

Another thing is, I think the fact that we have to swop simcards is partially preventing us from spending more on data. I know I am nearing my 10 MB limit now, so I am not going to refresh the main forum page for the 10th time!

 

[Farquaon]

I asked the customer care consultant and she said the reason why you cant load another data bundle in the same 30 days, i cause it will overwrite your already loaded data bundle....go figure explaining that one

 

[BloemGuy]

Well, I may be wrong, but since your out of bundle tarrif on data (and SMS?) is generally higher than in bundle, they make more money if you go out bundle...because don't we all love to keep on surfing/SMSing despite the depletion of our bundles?

 

[Dolby]

Yes - but the thing is we buy another SIM card for R5, load a bundle on that new card, and use 'in bundle rates' ... so we never use out of bundle rates.

 

[Captain Beer]

im using an sms bundle and when my bundle is up i still pay the same rate (23c)

not sure if its the same for data yet