NATIONAL NEWS - While South Africans pay significantly more for data than people on the rest of the continent, the two main network providers, MTN and Vodacom, are also exploiting lower income consumers and being obscure on promotional data specials which leave the poor “inexplicably” paying more per megabyte.
This was the Competition Commission’s feedback on August 2017’s data services market inquiry into data pricing yesterday.
It follows complaints by the public on the high cost of data.
The commission found that although MTN and Vodacom were the larger service providers in South Africa, it disturbed the commission that they charged much cheaper rates in other African countries:
- Vodacom charged South African consumers R159 per 1GB, while those in Lesotho paid R108.55 and Nigerians only R40.
- MTN was a little pricier, charging R172 for 1GB to their South African consumers but about R50 in Zambia and R45.35 in Nigeria for the same bundle.
SA data prices, however, performed better on the international benchmark when it came to contract subscribers rather than pre-paid users, but still remained considerably more expensive than the cheapest country, Competition Commissioner Tembinkosi Bonakele said.
But although poorer consumers jumped at the chance of data specials and promotions, the actual pricing was not entirely transparent, resulting in them paying more for a daily special than a monthly data bundle.
“Operators have sought to argue that smaller bundles on short validity periods compare more favourably.
“While that may be the case, a 20MB bundle valid for a day is still about 66% more expensive than a one-month 1GB bundle on the Vodacom network. However, the very short validity period also makes that smaller bundle more likely to expire, making the effective rate likely higher still,” Bonakele said.
Read the full article here on the Caxton publication, The Citizen.
