Mobile data prices
Following the mobile broadband price war earlier this year, mobile data pricing has remained stable even though there are signs that cellular data prices may come under pressure again.
New campaigns
Cell C has launched a new special offer which gives all customers who sign up for a Cell C contract or controlchat package 50% of their data usage free for the duration of their contract. This offer is however not applicable to smartdata contracts or smartdata bundles.
This half-price data brings a significant saving to contract customers who typically pay R2 per MB for data usage. But, at R1 per MB, it is still significantly more expensive than Virgin Mobile’s R0.50 per MB.
Vodacom has also starting punting its prepaid data bundles using the payoff line “More Data. More Freedom. For Much Less.” There is however no real reduction is price, and the term "For Much Less" is most likely referring to potential savings when using a bundle which is more suitable to your needs.
Vodacom’s data prices start at R9.25 for 5MB – translating into R1.85 per MB. This is far more expensive than Virgin Mobile’s flat rate of 50c per MB and Cell C’s special offer of R1 per MB for new contract customers.
Prices do however improve as the data bundle size increases, dropping to 19c per MB for a 2GB bundle selling for R389.
Telkom & Neotel
Neotel has already launched its CDMA-based converged data and voice services, priced far lower than current mobile data offerings.
The pricing differs significantly depending on the NeoConnect package selected, but the out-of-bundle rate of 8c per MB gives an indication of how much cheaper Neotel is than Vodacom, MTN and Cell C.
Neotel’s contract conditions, where customers can cancel their 24 month contract at any time and then only have to pay in the outstanding amount on the CDMA device, is also a first in the industry.
The biggest threat to the mobile providers may, however, be Telkom which is set to launch its HSDPA services soon. Telkom is expected to offer far better value for money than the cellular providers, putting additional pressure on current mobile data bundle pricing.
Basic Comparison
The following table provides a basic pricing comparison for standard data packages among the three cellular operators.
| Data Package | Vodacom | MTN | Cell C | Virgin Mobile |
| 10 MB | ~R 18.50 | R 10.00 | ~R 16.00 | R 5.00 |
| 100 MB | ~R 117.00 | R 80.00 | R 100.00 | R 50.00 |
| 500 MB | R 189.00 | R 189.00 | R 185.00 | R 250.00 |
| 1 GB | R 289.00 | R 289.00 | R 285.00 | R 500.00 |
| 2 GB | R 389.00 | R 389.00 | ~ R 570.00 | R 1000.00 |
Loading ...