Vodacom pulls uncapped products
Vodacom says it will discontinue its uncapped 4G and 5G products following criticism about implementing hard caps on these services.
The company launched its Home Uncapped 5G range in July 2022.
However, despite these products being labelled “uncapped”, Vodacom included what it termed “hard lock” limits in its Fair Usage Policy (FUP).
Despite criticism about this misleading practice, the company informed existing uncapped 4G subscribers in January 2023 that it would be amending their FUPs to also include “hard locks”.
Consumer journalist Wendy Knowler confronted Vodacom about the issue on Talk Radio 702 after affected subscribers contacted her about the change.
MyBroadband highlighted that calling a hard-capped product “uncapped” clearly violates previous Advertising Regulatory Board (ARB) findings and Internet Service Provider Association guidelines.
The ARB’s accepted definitions are simple:
- Capped refers to products with a predetermined limit imposed; once a user reaches this limit, connectivity is severed.
- Uncapped refers to products where predetermined limits may remain relevant, but connectivity is never severed.
This unfortunately leaves some wiggle room for the abuse of the term “uncapped” to describe soft-capped services, but it does make clear that companies can’t “hard-lock” something they advertise as uncapped.
While Vodacom is pulling its uncapped products off the market, it said existing contract subscribers will be given fair opportunity to cancel or migrate their package to a suitable alternative.
“Following a review of our recently launched uncapped data products, Vodacom South Africa has taken a decision to discontinue the sale of these products,” a Vodacom spokesperson said.
Vodacom said it is busy removing these products from its website and dealsheets, and promised to complete the process as quickly as possible.
“Those that are impacted by the recently-announced change in our Fair Usage Policy will be provided with an opportunity to cancel their contract — without any cancellation charges — or to migrate to a more suitable plan,” it said.
“The vast majority of customers that are subscribed to these uncapped products won’t reach the hard lock thresholds — for example 600GB on the 10Mbps tariff — so they will continue to enjoy an uninterrupted experience.”
Vodacom explained that it decided to transform its uncapped services into large-cap products to tackle increased network congestion caused by Eskom power cuts.
“The change in Fair Usage Policy on uncapped products, which will be introduced from 15 February 2023, targets usage that congests network resources,” Vodacom stated.
“[This is] so that we ensure the best quality connectivity for all our customers, particularly during heightened load-shedding,” it said.
“We take full responsibility for the ambiguity and confusion that our change in Fair Usage Policy has created and apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.”
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