Good news about mobile and fibre prices in South Africa

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) says it observed continued competitiveness between network operators and fibre service providers in the first six months of the year.

Icasa received 380 tariff notifications between 1 January and 30 September 2024, which was 18 more than the previous reporting period.

Network operators filed 55 new products, 92 promotions, and 72 extensions to promotional offers, totalling 219 notifications to the regulator.

The regulator said this was indicative of the operators’ efforts to increase product variety and customer choice in the telecommunications market.

Icasa said operators were also incentivizing and rewarding loyal customers while attracting new customers by providing more affordable access to communication services.

“The Authority observed the operators’ efforts to offer more value in the data services market,” Icasa continued.

“During the period under review, Vodacom introduced new 30-day standard prepaid data bundles, for example, the 600MB, 1.2GB and 2.5GB, at R74, R89 and R155, respectively.”

MTN also introduced new 30-day standard prepaid data bundles, such as 600MB, 1.2GB and 2.5GB data bundles for R75, R89 and R155, respectively.

“Even though the introduction of larger data volumes resulted in price increases, the increase in data volume on selected data bundles translates to lower in-bundle rates,” Icasa stated.

Icasa also noted that certain operators kept the prices of data bundles unchanged, which translates to an effective price decrease for consumers when considering inflation.

The regulator said it had also received several tariff notifications related to URL-specific data bundles and integrated prepaid bundles.

“For example, in the over-the-top services market, MTN added new social bundles comprising WhatsApp, Facebook and TikTok packages,” said Icasa.

Vodacom also introduced TikTok bundles, it added.

“These URL-specific data bundles benefit customers with affordable prices, which translate to low in-bundle rates,” it said.

Additionally, MTN introduced its Yellow Phone price plan, which offers integrated bundles of anytime data and voice minutes.

“Cell C’s customer value management bundles continue to benefit customers with affordable promotions,” Icasa said.

Cell C also filed additional bundles with Icasa during the first half of the year.

“The Authority also observed a continued competitiveness and innovation in the provision of 5G/LTE and Wireless Internet services, with 23 notifications received during the period under review,” it said.

“For instance, Telkom Mobile introduced new, and reduced the prices of the already existing prepaid LTE packages in its Prepaid LTE Plan.”

One example was the price reduction of its 120GB + 120GB LTE Prepaid package by R250 or 31.3% to R599.

MTN also introduced its Speed Booster and Speed Recovery Bundles, which let customers on its Home Internet Uncapped Plan boost their Internet speeds upon reaching their fair usage limit.

Subscribers could also use the feature to boost their existing price plan speeds to a higher network speed.

“However, it is worth noting that it has reduced the throttling speeds of the plan upon exhausting the fair usage limit,” Icasa said.

The regulator noted that wireless Internet services continue to serve as an alternative to fixed broadband services, especially in areas where there is no fibre footprint.

It said fibre network operators and Internet service providers continue to amend and introduce new fibre services in the market, while upgrading line speeds.

“The Authority deems this as beneficial to the public in terms of increased product choice, improvement in the quality of service, which may ultimately result in competitive pricing and more product innovation,” said Icasa.

“During the period under review, 46% (175) of the 380 filed tariff notifications were fibre related, which shows product variety for customers and the operators efforts compete for customers in the fibre services market.”

Icasa said its FTTx comparative analysis showed that the approximated average prices for 25/25Mbps services decreased by 1.5% to R562.68.

Similarly, the average price for 50/50Mbps packages decreased by 0.7% to R 777.76, while the 100/100Mbps product range increased by an average of 0.2% to R942.78.

“The slight changes in average prices suggest that the prices charged by operators tend to be normally distributed,” Icasa stated.

“Therefore, most prices tend to converge towards the estimated average price of each line speed.”

Icasa said this may be indicative of operators’ efforts to become more competitive and increase their footprints or market shares in the fibre services market.

“This may result in the incumbents charging competitive prices, which ultimately benefits customers in terms of reduced communication costs,” it said.