Update: This post ran on June 21, but our sentiment on this new pricing has changed somewhat. While it great that Vodacom is lowering its data prices, it turns out they are not extending this new offer to prepaid and topup customers as well. Last time we checked, prepaid is quite popular in SA…
Isn’t competition a great thing?
Vodacom today revised its data services structure and pricing which will see contract data customers reap savings of up to 43% and get double their data for free with Night Owl, moving the effective savings to as high as 72%.
The move means that from 1 August customers will pay less for accessing the Internet. Customers will now pay as little as 7 cents per MB for data consumption.
“œVodacom‘s change to red brought with it the promise of real changes to the network, customer service and value. We hope these price reductions will contribute to making the Internet more affordable and give our customers an enhanced connected experience,“ says Pieter Uys, Chief Executive Officer at Vodacom.
In addition to the savings, all existing and new Vodacom contract customers will be given another allocation of the same size as the subscribed data bundle to use anytime between midnight and 5AM. This service, called Night Owl, previously only on promotion, is now available as standard to all Vodacom contract subscribers. (Update: Contract users do not include Top Up contract users)
Contract customers will receive more value from these revised Broadband Standard prices. To illustrate this additional value, Vodacom customers who previously bought a MyMeg 110 data bundle at R88 (80c per MB), will now only pay R49, for a MyMeg 100 (49c per MB) – a cost saving of 39% per MB. They will also get double their data for free resulting in a net saving of 69%.
Existing Vodacom contract subscribers will automatically benefit from the new tariffs and will be migrated to the next bigger bundle size while paying less. For example, current 300MB subscribers will be migrated to 500MB, at a lower overall tariff.
Over and above the Broadband Standard price reductions, Vodacom also provides the following services:
- All Vodacom Broadband Internet customers receive Vodacom‘s free e-mail service with a storage capacity of 3GB; and
- Two hours of free technical support available for Broadband contract customers. Vodacom technicians come to customer‘s homes to help them with installing the modem software for the first time, or trouble shooting an existing installation and setting up a free Vodacom email address, including up to 5 aliases. To access free technical support service customers should Call 082 155 during office hours.
“œWe are committed to finding ways to make our customers smile and we will continue in focusing all our efforts towards delivering on this promise.“ Uys concluded.
Here is the full rundown of the new pricing structure. Click to enlarge:
Update: Turns out Vodacom neglected to mention that this is for normal contract customers only. The portion of the population that uses prepaid phones or Top Up CONTRACTS will not be so lucky. This is strange, because once off purchases of data bundles always had the same price regardless of whether it is contract, prepaid or topup users. Many users of the Top Up contracts get them for better control over data bundles which are becoming more and more essential with modern smartphones. Top Up contracts always constituted better value for users who want to buy data when they need it.
Vodacom – many South Africans rely on their phones as their primary internet connections, and the vast majority of these users are Prepaid. You have never had a problem charging them the same price for Once Off bundles. Do not exploit the people who need lower rates on data the most. Do the right thing – and make these offers available to all your customers…
