Cellular Data Bundles – who offers the best deal?
MTN started a price war early in 2007 by reducing the price of their data bundles by 20% and throwing in a free Gigabyte of data for their 1 GB subscribers.
Vodacom soon retaliated with a 61% price reduction on their 2 GB bundles, reducing the price from R 998-00 to R 389-00.
Since then the cellular data market has been relatively quiet, but both MTN and Cell C recently announced another set of price cuts to make their product offerings more competitive.
Best Deal
In the sub-500 MB usage category MTN gives the best deals with their R 10-00 for 10 MB and R 169-00 for 350 MB bundles. Neither Vodacom nor Cell C comes very close to matching the per-MB rates for similar usage packages.
In the 500 MB, 1 GB and 2 GB usage categories – which have become something of a de-facto standard for cellular data bundles – the prices are very similar.
Cell C is slightly cheaper for both 500 MB and 1 GB of usage. Their price of R 185-00 for 500 MB and R 285-00 for 1 GB just beats Vodacom and MTN’s R 189-00 for 500 MB and R 289-00 for 1 GB.
One thing to keep in mind when comparing the three cellular providers is that Cell C only offer EDGE – which is significantly slower than MTN and Vodacom’s HSDPA – which makes a direct comparison is not entirely fair. Many Vodacom and MTN subscribers however make use of the companies’ EDGE offering which partly justifies the comparison.
MTN and Vodacom both charge R 389-00 for 2 GB of data.
The following tables give a basic overview of the most prominent data packages from the three mobile providers and the rates associated with these packages.
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Cellular Data Bundle Rates
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| Privider | Speed | Usage | Cost | Cost / MB |
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Entry Level
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| MTN | 1800 | 10 | 10 | 1.00 |
| Vodacom | 1800 | 75 | 88 | 1.17 |
| Vodacom | 1800 | 20 | 28 | 1.40 |
| Cell C | 244 | 25 | 39 | 1.56 |
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Under 500 MB
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| MTN | 1800 | 350 | 169 | 0.48 |
| Vodacom | 1800 | 250 | 160 | 0.64 |
| Vodacom | 1800 | 150 | 119 | 0.79 |
| MTN | 1800 | 100 | 80 | 0.80 |
| Cell C | 244 | 200 | 175 | 0.88 |
| Cell C | 244 | 100 | 100 | 1.00 |
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500 MB
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| Cell C | 244 | 500 | 185 | 0.37 |
| Vodacom | 1800 | 500 | 189 | 0.38 |
| MTN | 1800 | 500 | 189 | 0.38 |
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1 GB
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| Cell C | 244 | 1024 | 285 | 0.28 |
| MTN | 1800 | 1024 | 289 | 0.28 |
| Vodacom | 1800 | 1024 | 289 | 0.28 |
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