How Vodacom, MTN can kill the value of mobile VoIP services

What a terrible misleading and conspiring article!
Full of loop holes, rumours and conspiracy.
Thread title in itself is misleading.

You spammed the forum and attacked Vodacom R3 for 50mb for 60 min and conveniently remove it from these calculations? Does it not fit in perfectly for VoIP usage?

Why such biased and in most case false journalism?

Has MTN & Vodacom confirmed what they will charge for VoIP? You've quoted a MTN article posted in 2009 regarding VoIP rates and created a stir clearly based on misinterpreted information. Vodacom welcomed whatsapp VoIP offerings.

You never taken cell c poor data network in any evaluation of VoIP service, if cell c packet loss fails with text throughput on whatsapp imagine a 10 second VoIP call.

Lousy journalism, daily sun can put a more factual article together than what you've published here.
 
Gulio said:
What a terrible misleading and conspiring article!
Full of loop holes, rumours and conspiracy.
Thread title in itself is misleading.

You spammed the forum and attacked Vodacom R3 for 50mb for 60 min and conveniently remove it from these calculations? Does it not fit in perfectly for VoIP usage?

Why such biased and in most case false journalism?

Has MTN & Vodacom confirmed what they will charge for VoIP? You've quoted a MTN article posted in 2009 regarding VoIP rates and created a stir clearly based on misinterpreted information. Vodacom welcomed whatsapp VoIP offerings.

You never taken cell c poor data network in any evaluation of VoIP service, if cell c packet loss fails with text throughput on whatsapp imagine a 10 second VoIP call.

Lousy journalism, daily sun can put a more factual article together than what you've published here.
Click to expand...
MTN or Vodacom staff?
 
Gulio said:
What a terrible misleading and conspiring article!
Full of loop holes, rumours and conspiracy.
Thread title in itself is misleading.

You spammed the forum and attacked Vodacom R3 for 50mb for 60 min and conveniently remove it from these calculations? Does it not fit in perfectly for VoIP usage?

Why such biased and in most case false journalism?

Has MTN & Vodacom confirmed what they will charge for VoIP? You've quoted a MTN article posted in 2009 regarding VoIP rates and created a stir clearly based on misinterpreted information. Vodacom welcomed whatsapp VoIP offerings.

You never taken cell c poor data network in any evaluation of VoIP service, if cell c packet loss fails with text throughput on whatsapp imagine a 10 second VoIP call.

Lousy journalism, daily sun can put a more factual article together than what you've published here.
Click to expand...
I guess you believe every word in MTN's double page ad.

I would not put it beyond either VC or MTN to use the approved rate for VOIP calls, and in the case of MTN they will claim it is to:
  1. Improve the quality of their network;
  2. Pay more tax;
  3. Have more money to put into corporate responsibility projects;
  4. Protect the customer;
  5. Improve the customer's experience;
  6. Enable the customer to make Skype calls for "Mahala" as Skype doesn't charge for Skype-to-Skype calls;
  7. Buy beard-growing potions for their executives; or
  8. All of the above.

So, I spend R3 for a 50Mb voucher to make a quick Skype call. I do that, and my mate just sat down to have dinner and tells me call in an hour please. How do I pause VC's clock on the bundle, pray tell me?

I use CellC to make Skype voice calls on a regular basis, and only rarely experience problems. These calls are generally to people in Botswana, Namibia and Moz. I rarely use video calls, simply because I don't need to see the mug on the other side, but have done so on my notebook. The quality as always been as good as it gets. For calls to my friends who emigrated to Aus, NZ, Europe and the USA I make use of CellC's very good international rates.
 
Gulio said:
What a terrible misleading and conspiring article!
Full of loop holes, rumours and conspiracy.
Thread title in itself is misleading.
Click to expand...

How is this misleading -

They started of with the cheaper promo prices, then went to the standard prices, then to the out of bundle prices and ended of with the stated prices for voip.


Gulio said:
You spammed the forum and attacked Vodacom R3 for 50mb for 60 min and conveniently remove it from these calculations? Does it not fit in perfectly for VoIP usage?

Why such biased and in most case false journalism?
Click to expand...

That 50mb thing came out this week, and they probably did the research for a small while now.

Gulio said:
Has MTN & Vodacom confirmed what they will charge for VoIP? You've quoted a MTN article posted in 2009 regarding VoIP rates and created a stir clearly based on misinterpreted information. Vodacom welcomed whatsapp VoIP offerings.

You never taken cell c poor data network in any evaluation of VoIP service, if cell c packet loss fails with text throughput on whatsapp imagine a 10 second VoIP call.

Lousy journalism, daily sun can put a more factual article together than what you've published here.
Click to expand...

It doesn't matter that they confirmed, it is in the contract that you sign, atleast with MTN it is.

Read the article - it said that they filed for higher rates as well.

It is interesting to note that MTN and Vodacom have both filed separate, higher rates with the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) for VoIP traffic.
Click to expand...

Also MTN is the worst provider in my area with data throughput. I have VC, CellC and MTN sims at my house, and mine (MTN) is the worst at my house and at my office, so that cell c statement is subjective and probably your experience. Should they take my MTN poor quality as fact now too?
 
Last edited:
Telephony service providers will become IP providers. Period.

Consumers will decide what they do on top of it...
 
Jan, why quote one service in KB/min and the others in Kb/s?

Many (if not nearly all) peeps tend to use video calling on Skype on their PCs.
 
"They compete with an operator’s biggest source of revenue, voice, by offering a free service that runs on that operators own data network"
the networks must remember the VOIP service is NOT completely free to the user... while the call itself may be free, u still have to pay for the data used... so they still get revenue from that.
and as we all say, if we paid for the data on our account, we should be able to use it any way we like, be it internet banking, porn surfing, email transfer or VOIP!
Its stupid to think the networks would rather not sell extra data, than make lower margins on VOIP vs cell call. That only smacks of greed.
Where will it end? Telkom screwing you on ADSL coz they want to protect the fixed line revenue?
As it is they screw us with the line service that most of us never use to make calls with.
This will be a step backwards.
 
Last edited:
So now they want to monitor your traffic for voip packets? Is this legal to do so?

Edit : interesting to see that they have the ability to detect voip usage and charge accordingly, but still have OOB excuses...
 
jannievanzyl said:
Jan, why quote one service in KB/min and the others in Kb/s?

Many (if not nearly all) peeps tend to use video calling on Skype on their PCs.
Click to expand...

mmmig said:
People are using PCs less and less
Click to expand...

Which might be true, but honestly how many people do you know that uses Skype on their phone?

Whatsapp bringing VOIP calling is going to be the game changer as it's the most popular mobile IM platform currently, I have somewhere around 400 contacts on Whatsapp and around 60 on Skype, guess which one I'll be using for VOIP calls more often

I don't see Vodacom introducing the higher rate, they do still have some sane people working there like Jannie
 
So why can't ICASA block MTN and Vodacom for charging extra for Voip. it is data and you can use it the way you want. they trying to do a Telkom on us where Telkom splits the data from voice even though they run on the same platform and split by a card at the exchange.

These guys are contradicting themselves. Icasa got f0kk0l backbone to stand up against these guys. force them to do certain things that will be of the best interest of the country and the economy by taking away their licences or block them on every little thing.
 
I find this all bs, they shouldn't be allowed to do this... I buy x amount of data, I can do what I want with it, I have after all payed for it. Next thing they'll be charging sms rates for tweeting and updating fb status
 
phoneJunky said:
How is this misleading -
...
It doesn't matter that they confirmed, it is in the contract that you sign, atleast with MTN it is.
Click to expand...

I do believe in the discussion on the other article about this, someone posted the latest MTN T&C's off a current contract, and the VoIP price clause wasn't there. - http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthr...R25-per-MB?p=12268570&viewfull=1#post12268570


So yeah, misleading and not properly researched. Can't REALLY say I'm surprised, and I'm even less surprised by forumites leaping to the same conclusions as the article writer.
 
I think a lot of you are missing the point.

Data and VoIP are not classed the same on an operators NW.

Data = best effort;
VoIP = Guaranteed Service (GBR)

This is why they need to detect differences between the two.

There are other factors to consider as well.
1. GBR services use more resources on net vs best effort. Thus we will see more congestion, similar to what happened to Cell C.
2. Subscribers see IP as data ONLY, thus when you make a VoIP call and its crap or when you browse and its slow, you suspect the same thing, that the operators NW is crap.
3. Circuit switched services still offer better quality over VoIP (in most networks)CS is built for it. Some new features such as HD voice and VoLTE will change this, however the entire NW needs to be rebuilt/reconfigured

So essentially what operators are planning on doing is not just to protect their own profits. Customer experience needs to be taken into account here as well.

While I dont agree with their pricing as it stands now, I can understand their reasoning. That said I would expect them to put this extra revenue into building capacity and QoS requirements for VoIP.

Lastly, I dont see Whatsapp's VoIP service as a killer. In order for them to provide a good service, they will need to cooperate with operators and ensure QoS for the service. This will entail some sort of agreement between the two and perhaps even revenue sharing or specific routing for the VoIP services.
 
jannievanzyl said:
Jan, why quote one service in KB/min and the others in Kb/s?
Click to expand...

Good question. I provided the input data I used exactly as provided by Skype and Viber. This way anyone can run the same calculations I did using the same input data I did.
 
mmmig said:
MTN or Vodacom staff?
Click to expand...

Nope! Just looking for fair and valuable factual info.

Allin said:
I guess you believe every word in MTN's double page ad.

I would not put it beyond either VC or MTN to use the approved rate for VOIP calls, and in the case of MTN they will claim it is to:
  1. Improve the quality of their network;
  2. Pay more tax;
  3. Have more money to put into corporate responsibility projects;
  4. Protect the customer;
  5. Improve the customer's experience;
  6. Enable the customer to make Skype calls for "Mahala" as Skype doesn't charge for Skype-to-Skype calls;
  7. Buy beard-growing potions for their executives; or
  8. All of the above.

So, I spend R3 for a 50Mb voucher to make a quick Skype call. I do that, and my mate just sat down to have dinner and tells me call in an hour please. How do I pause VC's clock on the bundle, pray tell me?

I use CellC to make Skype voice calls on a regular basis, and only rarely experience problems. These calls are generally to people in Botswana, Namibia and Moz. I rarely use video calls, simply because I don't need to see the mug on the other side, but have done so on my notebook. The quality as always been as good as it gets. For calls to my friends who emigrated to Aus, NZ, Europe and the USA I make use of CellC's very good international rates.
Click to expand...

Nice profiling, chip on your shoulder?
Ex Vodacom employee? I think you are.

phoneJunky said:
How is this misleading -

They started of with the cheaper promo prices, then went to the standard prices, then to the out of bundle prices and ended of with the stated prices for voip.




That 50mb thing came out this week, and they probably did the research for a small while now.



It doesn't matter that they confirmed, it is in the contract that you sign, atleast with MTN it is.

Read the article - it said that they filed for higher rates as well.



Also MTN is the worst provider in my area with data throughput. I have VC, CellC and MTN sims at my house, and mine (MTN) is the worst at my house and at my office, so that cell c statement is subjective and probably your experience. Should they take my MTN poor quality as fact now too?
Click to expand...

Bundle pricing was used, Vodacom is tied with Cell C as the cheapest.
Ended with OOB pricing labelled as Ad hoc, does Jan not know what Ad-hoc means? As far as I know only prepaid Vodacom use R2/MB OOB.

If R3 option came out prior to relating this conspiracy, why even publish this? Its already out dated.

Wrong again, while they do reserve the right to charge, they havent and made no intentions of charging higher rates, Voip is not new, Viber been out for 4 or moore years, who has been charged these conspiring rates?? Nobody.

CeeBee said:
"They compete with an operator’s biggest source of revenue, voice, by offering a free service that runs on that operators own data network"
the networks must remember the VOIP service is NOT completely free to the user... while the call itself may be free, u still have to pay for the data used... so they still get revenue from that.
and as we all say, if we paid for the data on our account, we should be able to use it any way we like, be it internet banking, porn surfing, email transfer or VOIP!
Its stupid to think the networks would rather not sell extra data, than make lower margins on VOIP vs cell call. That only smacks of greed.
Where will it end? Telkom screwing you on ADSL coz they want to protect the fixed line revenue?
As it is they screw us with the line service that most of us never use to make calls with.
This will be a step backwards.
Click to expand...

I find the ignorance of allowing yourself to think the operators have not considered Voip when 3G was launched in 2006(I think). Early days of 3G it was easy to make a Voip call. The operators have known about voip for years, before you did.

As I said before, there are many Voip type products on the market that many of us have used already and only charged normal data rates, to assume it will change is misguided.

Jan needs a tinfoil hat lol!

All these topics have one thing in common, everyone has sim cards of all the service providers, yet they struggle to find signal and data throughput from the bigger telecom companies, same excuse in every topic... you guys just try to be cool by hating on the bigger telecoms.

When do you guys publish valuable fact finding articles?
 
Net Neutrality

KOPITE said:
So why can't ICASA block MTN and Vodacom for charging extra for Voip. it is data and you can use it the way you want. they trying to do a Telkom on us where Telkom splits the data from voice even though they run on the same platform and split by a card at the exchange.

These guys are contradicting themselves. Icasa got f0kk0l backbone to stand up against these guys. force them to do certain things that will be of the best interest of the country and the economy by taking away their licences or block them on every little thing.
Click to expand...

Its coming guys Please take the opportunity to submit your views and reasoning to ICASA as the process is underway.

Oh and please consider how Multichoice is allowed to Block Programs over the Internet that they show on the Satellite Platform.( Before you ASK - they do this by asking the supplier to block all downloads and viewing from South african IP's ) they have been doing it for a while now. Complaints been sent nothing done by DOC or ICASA.
 
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