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Data prices go haywire2007-04-09 Wireless packages abound, and comparing them can be fairly tricky. THE recent, sudden drop in wireless broadband package prices from MTN, iBurst, Sentech and Vodacom may have put you in a fix about which service provider will give you the most data for your money. Connection fees, charges for modems and service add-ons complicate a like-for-like comparison of the packages available, so Young Money will this week simply look at some of the cheapest options available per unit of data. iBurst’s Play Extreme 1200MB package turns out to be one of the cheaper options. A 24-month contract, which includes a laptop modem, is R399. (At first glance, Vodacom’s My Gig One package appears cheaper, but iBurst’s larger data allocation translates to R332.50 a gigabyte a month.) The price rises to R419 if the consumer wants a desktop modem (which is around R349 per gigabyte). Vodacom is currently on top of the consumer list with its My Gig One package. My Gig One gives the user one gigabyte worth of data a month, costing R349 on a 24-month contract, including a modem. MTN’s Extended Data 1GB, including the data card, will cost the consumer R479 a month for 24 months, though heavy data users will welcome the special offer it is currently running of an extra 1GB for the next three months (at the same price). It also has a once-off connection fee of R99. Sentech offers the MyWireless flexi1000plus package, which is 1024 megabytes of data (one gigabyte plus an added 24 megabytes,'), for R549 a month on a 24- month contract. The modem is included in the package. This amounts to about R536 a gigabyte a month. If you don’t want to commit to a two-year contract, you can opt for a month-to-month, prepaid-style contract, which is cheaper — although that is because the cost of a modem is usually not included in the deal. If you prefer this option, Vodacom’s offering is among the cheapest. You can get one gigabyte for R289 in the month- to-month option. iBurst’s Play Extreme 1200MB package costs R369 a month if you sign up for the month-to-month agreement, excluding a modem. (Per gig, that adds up to R307.50 a month.) MTN’s month-to-month payment option for Extended Data 1GB costs R399 a month, but again, requires a R99 one-off connection fee. Sentech’s MyWireless flexi1000plus package in the month-to-month deal, which excludes the modem, will cost the consumer R449 a month (which, with the extra 24MB, means it costs about R438 a gigabyte a month). There are a number of other packages available from all these service providers, but what exactly will you be able to do with one gigabyte of data? One gigabyte of data is estimated as the equivalent of 18 hours worth of MP3s and the ability to browse about 30 000 Internet pages. With one gigabyte, you can store about 700 video clips or 40 minutes of flash video, which is about eight hours of normal video. One gigabyte will allow you to send an estimated 150 000 emails if they do not contain attachments, which obviously use up more data. The prices offered to consumers are becoming increasingly competitive, leading to the perception of a data war, a view denied by the service providers. MTN’s acting managing director, Brian Gouldie, says the price cuts are based on a value proposition to customers and that the extended data bundles are driven mainly by affordability and convenience. “It’s not a data war, it’s how you market, and it’s not about the price. It’s about the quality and accessibility of the products,” says Gouldie. Vodacom chief executive Alan Knott-Craig justifies his group’s price cuts as a continuation of an initiative implemented in 2005. Says Marcel Steyn, the portfolio manager for Sentech’s MyWireless: “It would be correct to state that our price reductions led to a sudden reaction from more than one operator, with one specific operator slashing pricing dramatically.” He says the price cuts indicate “that operators are cognisant of the fact that South African consumers are price-sensitive, and that consumers might not be willing to pay a premium for well-known brands”. The founder of MyBroadband.co.za, Rudolph Muller, whose website focuses specifically on broadband trends, says competition is the current driving force behind the price reductions. “Drastic price reductions in the broadband arena are a common occurrence, and before the price cuts, our wireless providers already fell within international norms.” The sudden cut in price has begged the question whether consumers have been paying much more than they should for the data packages. But Muller says it is important for consumers to know that the prices for data are not completely at the discretion of the providers, but also dependant on “the cost of international bandwidth, which is inhibiting the service providers from reducing their prices further, and is really holding broadband growth back”. Telkom’s group executive for corporate communication, Lulu Letlape, says the group has successfully tested the wireless broadband technology and is in the process of developing the product. Deployment should commence later this year. Virgin Mobile’s Nicholas Maweni also says his group is exploring broadband. “We are currently under the Cell C network, so we have to use whatever it is using, but Virgin is looking into different kinds of wireless technology. Source: My Broadband |
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