{"id":558571,"date":"2024-09-03T11:01:35","date_gmt":"2024-09-03T09:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=558571"},"modified":"2024-09-03T15:03:12","modified_gmt":"2024-09-03T13:03:12","slug":"rain-mobile-mess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/558571-rain-mobile-mess.html","title":{"rendered":"Rain Mobile mess"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Rain has lost its value proposition in the mobile market and tacitly admitted that it is better to use AirMobile, Telkom, MTN, or Vodacom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rain recently launched a standalone 4G SIM offering with 2 GB of data, 60 minutes, and 100 SMS messages for R165 per month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new Rain mobile offering replaced its three uncapped 4G packages, which it discontinued last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What stands out about Rain’s new mobile product is that its value proposition is worse than other products in the market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Afrihost’s AirMobile has a 2GB data-only package for R60.00 per month and offers a 10GB package for R150.00 per month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People looking for a bundled data and voice package with 2GB of data and 60 voice minutes, the same as Rain, will pay R124.40 at AirMobile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Telkom is also more affordable. Its FlexOn 2 contract bundle offers 2GB of data, 75 minutes, and 500 SMSs for R129 per month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For people who call a lot, MTN Superflex offers 10GB of data and unlimited local calls and SMS for R299 per month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although it is 81% more expensive than Rain’s mobile product, it offers 400% more data and unlimited calls \u2014 a far better value proposition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some mobile virtual network operators roaming on MTN’s network offer 5GB of data and unlimited calls and SMSes for R199 per month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simply put, Rain’s new mobile product is nothing special and does not offer value to South African consumers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even more striking is that MyBroadband Insights’ latest data shows that Rain’s network is by far the worst in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rain’s average download speed of 21Mbps is much lower than MTN’s at 82Mbps and Vodacom’s at 80Mbps. It is also much slower than Cell C and Telkom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another problem is that Rain’s voice-over-LTE calling is not supported on all phones. That means you need a custom dialer to make voice calls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MyBroadband asked Rain why people should consider Rain over alternatives like AirMobile, Telkom, MTN, or Vodacom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rain could not answer this question and tacitly admitted that their product is not competitive and that South Africans are better off using other products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub predicted Rain’s problems<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Shameel Joosub, Vodacom CEO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

MyBroadband asked Rain why it stopped offering uncapped data products for mobile phones, which differentiated its value proposition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the company preferred not to answer this question. It provided a bizarre alternative statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Following our spectrum acquisition in the 2022 auction, Rain is the newest mobile network operator, joining Vodacom, MTN, and Telkom as the fourth major telco,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This answer suggested that it had only become a mobile network operator in 2022 and that this was somehow linked to the spectrum auction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, long before the spectrum auction, Rain had its own spectrum and operated as a mobile network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer may be a misguided attempt to deflect from the fact that it has lost its value proposition and is no longer able to compete effectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rain’s decision to discontinue its unlimited mobile data products further showed that Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub’s warning about the issue was accurate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joosub predicted that Rain will face network capacity constraints if it continues to offer large data bundles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It is easy when you have an empty network, but when you offer aggressive deals, it quickly fills up,” Joosub said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rain traditionally avoided admitting that it faced network congestion, trying to argue away poor speeds and connectivity issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company also dismissed Joosub’s warning and committed to continue to offer uncapped data products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, its latest mobile product, which offers only 2GB of mobile data, suggests that it may have miscalculated with its previous unlimited mobile data offerings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rain has lost its value proposition in the mobile market and tacitly admitted that it is better to use Airmobile, Telkom, MTN, or Vodacom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":558599,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[1669,92270,42,43716,109,41],"class_list":["post-558571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-afrihost","tag-airmobile","tag-mtn","tag-rain","tag-telkom","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558571"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558571"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":558722,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558571\/revisions\/558722"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}