Rain recently announced that its popular R250 Unlimited Off-Peak plan, which offers uncapped data for 19 hours per day, will be discontinued on 30 June 2019.
However, the company has now revised this decision and will continue to offer the service to new and existing clients after June.
“We have decided to remove the copy from the website tomorrow for some planned changes on the site,” Rain’s chief marketing officer Khaya Dlanga told MyBroadband.
“The sale of the R250 Unlimited Off-Peak plan will continue after June meaning it won’t end on the 30th of this month due to popular demand.”
“The new tariffs will only be introduced when we launch 5G later this year. We will announce the date later.”
Rain’s R250 unlimited data service
The company’s “R250 data deal”, which was launched in June 2018, offers subscribers unlimited off-peak data between 11pm and 6pm each day.
This affordable uncapped service became a popular broadband option for many South Africans who need a high-end LTE service during office hours.
Many current Rain subscribers expressed concerns about the discontinuation of the unlimited service, but there is some good news for these customers.
Dlanga told MyBroadband that current subscribers will continue to enjoy the unlimited off-peak service – even after they introduce the new tariffs later in the year along with their 5G launch.
“Users of the plan will continue to enjoy unlimited off-peak data until at least June 2020,” Dlanga said.
Warnings of network capacity constraints
Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub warned Rain in August 2018 that it will face network capacity constraints in the future, which can cost a lot of money to fix.
Joosub said the looming network congestion means that Rain will face the same challenges as Vodacom, especially in a spectrum-starved environment.
“It is easy when you have an empty network, but when you offer aggressive deals it quickly fills up,” he said.
“Mobile is a contended service which quickly fills up. It is possible for 10,000 or 20,000 customers to fill up your entire network with big data packages.”
When network congestion sets in, you have to improve your network to keep pace with the continued usage growth.
Without additional spectrum, network operators like Rain will therefore have to spend a lot of money on new sites.
Rain CEO dismissed concerns
Rain CEO Willem Roos dismissed these concerns and said in September 2018 that the unlimited off-peak mobile data product was here to stay.
Roos said at the time that Rain remained excited about its R250 unlimited off-peak package and “certainly plans to continue the offering”.
“At this risk of sounding like a salesman, I really do think this is an excellent proposition for many customers,” he told MyBroadband.
Rain R250 deal to end
The screenshots below show the message on the Rain website and a conversation with Rain’s support team.
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