Towards the end of 2008 Telkom launched their first mobile broadband offering, Telkom Do 3G. Telkom’s mobile data bundles are priced more aggressively than the cellular providers and their out-of-bundle rates are not too shabby either at a competitive 30c per MB.<\/p>\n
Vodacom, MTN and Cell C are taking note of Telkom’s entrance into the mobile market, but the fixed line provider is not their only concern. The big guns will also have to keep a beady eye on competition from Internet Service Providers (ISPs) now that they are in possession of Individual ECNS licenses which were granted earlier this year.<\/p>\n
East London based ISP, Sainet, was one of the first to leap into the mobile data space with the launch of their own 3G\/HSDPA offering. Apart from aggressively priced data bundles they are also offering subscribers bandwidth rollover, something which HSDPA users have been hankering after for a long time.<\/p>\n
With the advent of these new players in the 3G\/HSDPA market it begs the question as to who provides the best in-bundle and out-of-bundle rates. The following table provides insight into the pricing from the various mobile data providers.<\/p>\n
It should be noted that Telkom provides 7.2 Mbps download speeds, higher than the 3.6 Mbps speeds from Vodacom, 3.6 Mbps and 1.8 Mbps from MTN & Sainet and 240 Kbps speeds from Cell C. These are however maximum theoretical speeds and the real life performance can differ significantly.<\/p>\n
| \n 500 MB<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n 1 GB<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n 2 GB<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n 3 GB<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |