While South Africa’s biggest mobile network operators impose set validity periods on all their bundles, one smaller player and several mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) offer never-expiring data bundles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many South Africans have complained about data bundles expiring, arguing that an unspoilable product they paid for should not have its validity capped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The three big mobile networks \u2014 Vodacom, MTN, and Telkom \u2014 offer data bundles with validity periods ranging from an hour to multiple months. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
They have explained that putting an expiry date on bundles was necessary to manage network traffic, maintain quality of services, and offer price points across South Africa’s affordability spectrum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Vodacom spokesperson previously told MyBroadband that the network’s research and assessments of customer purchasing behaviour showed there would be little demand for never-expiring bundles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“If all data bundles were offered without expiry, mobile operators would need to invest significantly in additional network capacity to maintain a high standard quality of service,” the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Naturally, this would come with associated costs, which would result in an increase in data prices.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
MTN South Africa explained that a network would have to be “dimensioned” to cater for carried-over traffic volumes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dimensioning refers to the practice of ensuring there is sufficient network capacity to serve customers in a particular area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“If all bundles could not expire, it would remove the consumer’s ability to choose products at price points which best suit their needs,” MTN said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The preferential pricing which may be enjoyed on shorter term validity bundles would be adversely affected, and subscribers would all be forced to purchase more expensive bundles valid for a longer period of time.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One type of mobile data that technically never expires is airtime consumed out-of-bundle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, out-of-bundle data rates are generally more expensive than in-bundle rates, except when using certain tariff plans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Customers on Cell C’s 4EVA prepaid plan, for example, pay a flat rate of R0.06 per MB of out-of-bundle consumption, working out to R60 per GB.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
MVNO Capitec Connect also charges all its prepaid customers 4.5 cents per MB or R45 per GB, the most affordable out-of-bundle data rate in the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The downside to these plans is that they do not offer lower effective data costs as usage increases, whereas validity-limited data bundles get cheaper with higher allocations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Africa’s newest mobile network \u2014 Rain \u2014 is the only major operator that has never-expiring data bundles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rain recently relaunched standalone 4G mobile products, priced at R165 per month with 2GB data, 60 minutes, and 60 SMSs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These all expire after a month, but any allocations from top-up bundles will not expire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In terms of non-expiring data bundles, Rain’s pricing starts from R10 for 100MB and goes up to R250 for 5GB.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition to Rain, at least three MVNOs offer never-expiring data bundles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These are FNB Connect, MegsApp, and Standard Bank Mobile. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Afrihost Air Mobile and Melon Mobile previously sold non-expiring data bundles, but this is no longer the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All of Air Mobile’s data bundles now expire after 60 days, while Melon Mobile’s personal plans limit data validity to 30 days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Only Melon Mobile’s business customers get access to never-expiring data on the company’s customisable plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
MyBroadband compared the prices of the never-expiring data bundles on Rain and the three MVNOs to see which offered the best pricing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A like-for-like comparison was difficult because of the greatly varying data allocations from each provider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Where more than one operator offered the same bundle size, we found that MegsApp tended to be the cheapest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The table below compares the prices of data bundles that never expire in South Africa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At least one major mobile network and three MVNOs offer data bundles that do not expire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":545743,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[17912,5922,97775,92711,43716,96851,55498],"class_list":["post-574720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-data-expiry","tag-fnb-connect","tag-megsapp","tag-mobile-data-bundles","tag-rain","tag-rainmobile","tag-standard-bank-mobile"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574720"}],"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\/341042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574720"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":575186,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574720\/revisions\/575186"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Bundle size<\/th> FNB Connect<\/th> MegsApp<\/th> RainMobile (top up bundles only)<\/th> Standard Bank Mobile<\/th><\/tr><\/thead> 100MB<\/td> R20<\/td> –<\/td> R10<\/mark><\/td> –<\/td><\/tr> 200MB<\/td> R25<\/td> R19
<\/mark>(+20MB)<\/td>–<\/td> –<\/td><\/tr> 330MB<\/td> –<\/td> R29<\/td> –<\/td> –<\/td><\/tr> 400MB<\/td> R45<\/td> –<\/td> –<\/td> –<\/td><\/tr> 500MB<\/td> R25<\/mark><\/td> R39
(+50MB)<\/td>–<\/td> R25<\/mark><\/td><\/tr> 600MB<\/td> R60<\/td> –<\/td> –<\/td> –<\/td><\/tr> 1GB<\/td> –<\/td> R49<\/mark><\/td> R50<\/td> R50<\/td><\/tr> 1.5GB<\/td> R89<\/td> –<\/td> –<\/td> –<\/td><\/tr> 2GB<\/td> –<\/td> R79<\/mark><\/td> R100<\/td> –<\/td><\/tr> 2.5GB<\/td> R155<\/td> –<\/td> –<\/td> –<\/td><\/tr> 3GB<\/td> –<\/td> R99<\/mark><\/td> R150<\/td> –<\/td><\/tr> 4GB<\/td> R229<\/td> –<\/td> –<\/td> –<\/td><\/tr> 5GB<\/td> –<\/td> –<\/td> R250 <\/td> –<\/td><\/tr> 6GB<\/td> R329<\/td> –<\/td> –<\/td> –<\/td><\/tr> 7.5GB<\/td> –<\/td> R189<\/td> –<\/td> –<\/td><\/tr> 10GB<\/td> –<\/td> –<\/td> –<\/td> –<\/td><\/tr> 11GB<\/td> –<\/td> R239<\/td> –<\/td> –<\/td><\/tr> 12GB<\/td> R579<\/td> –<\/td> –<\/td> –<\/td><\/tr> 15GB<\/td> –<\/td> –<\/td> –<\/td> –<\/td><\/tr> 20GB<\/td> R849<\/td> –<\/td> –<\/td> –<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"