99c per minute
Virgin Mobile has launched a special promotion from 1 November to 31 December 2008, offering Virgin-to-Virgin calls at 99c per minute during both peak and off-peak times.
According to Virgin Mobile CEO Peter Boyd, this promotion is aimed at getting more people to join the company’s network.
In an open letter to consumers Boyd argues that call charges to other networks – typically MTN and Vodacom – are at the mercy of the other operators through interconnect charges. This restriction does not hold for on-net calls, and this saving is hence passed on to consumers.
Consumers welcomed the new Virgin-to-Virgin promotion, but suggested that Virgin lead the way in negotiating lower interconnect tariffs with other telecoms newcomers such as Neotel, Cell C and VANS. This saving can then be passed on to consumers putting pressure on companies like MTN and Vodacom to follow suit.
This is, however, not the first on-net call rate promotion from a cellular operator. Cell C’s Woza Weekend promotion, offering free calls between Cell C subscribers over weekends, proved to be a great way for the mobile operator to grow its subscriber base.
Vodacom and MTN’s Yebo4Less and MTN Zone offerings provide their subscribers with varying call discounts of up to 99%.
The Virgin Mobile offer is, however, the only one offering all-day calls for under R1 per minute, and according to Boyd this rate will stay if “the official bodies and bigger companies sweep aside old agreements that have kept prices artificially high”.
“If we can’t change the industry in two months, then from January 2009 we will revert to R1.45 per minute,” Boyd concluded.
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