The price of mobile data in South Africa must come down, according to many industry stakeholders.<\/p>\n
Most of the focus is on smaller prepaid bundles and out-of-bundle data prices, which can be as high as R1 per megabyte.<\/p>\n
Part of the drive to bring down data prices is based on\u00a0more affordable comparative data products in other countries – but it can be deceiving to look at price alone and draw conclusions.<\/p>\n
MyBroadband decided to send me to the United States to test their mobile networks and see how much prepaid data really costs.<\/p>\n
I purchased several mobile data products from Verizon Wireless and AT&T – and the prepaid data prices were not cheap.<\/p>\n
What also became clear is that the price you see is not the price you get – there are often additional activation charges which accompany a prepaid SIM.<\/p>\n
The unlimited plans offered by Verizon Wireless and AT&T look great on paper, but restrictions like no mobile hotspots and strict fair-use-policies limit their attractiveness.<\/p>\n
The products I purchased and tested were:<\/p>\n
When it was time to pay, however, the price was $20 more than the advertised price – due to activation and other fees.<\/p>\n
This means that 6GB of data on AT&T effectively cost me $65 (R806), while 10GB of data on Verizon Wireless cost me $80 (R992).<\/p>\n
This is more expensive than in South Africa, but there is a big difference – both these plans come with unlimited voice calls and texts.<\/p>\n
They also throw in unlimited calls and texts to certain international countries, and roaming in Mexico and Canada for voice, data, and text.<\/p>\n
Prepaid data is therefore not significantly cheaper in the United States than in South Africa, but the overall value which a subscriber receives is more.<\/p>\n
The table below provides a comparison of prepaid data products in the United States and South Africa.<\/p>\n