8ota today announced that all new prepaid customers will be billed on a per-second structure, while still taking advantage of the service provider's unique prepaid benefits.
Competitively priced, this new billing option enables customers to pay pro-rata at a per second rate for the duration of the call, thus making per-second billing a cheaper option for subscribers who make shorter duration calls on a regular basis.
8ota's per-second billed prepaid option offers attractive rates of R1.12 per minute for off peak calls and R2.75 per minute for peak time calls. The per-second billing rate is applicable from the first second of the call. This will be effective from 15 May 2011.
Unlike some other networks that charge a higher off-peak rate for calls to competitor networks, 8ota's customers are charged a low R1.12 off-peak rate regardless of the network called. Peak time calls will be charged R2.75 per minute to any network as well.
This new tariff plan offers more value when customers call a fixed line number. Priced at 65 cents per minute, and billed per second, this all-day tariff is the lowest for a pre-paid mobile originated call.
In addition, all prepaid bonus offerings, which have been available since the launch of 8ota's services, remain available to per-second billed subscribers. As such, customers will still earn free outgoing minutes when receiving incoming calls from any local mobile network. These minutes earned can be used to call any mobile or fixed line network in South Africa. Also, for every five SMSes sent, customers receive 50 free SMSes to use that same day.
While this option will become the standard rate for customers that have acquired 8ota SIM cards, and have completed the RICA registration process, customers may opt for the flat rate of R1.50 per-minute billing structure instead. Furthermore, prepaid customers currently on per-minute billing can opt to change to per-second billing as well.
Subscribers have the option of switching between per-minute and per-second billing once every month by simply calling 8ota's Customer Care on 081180 to request a change.
Amith Maharaj, Managing Executive for 8ota, says: "8ota's new per-second pre-paid tariff empowers customers to choose a billing option that best suits them.
"Simplicity while retaining value remains a strategic imperative for 8ota, as we are still the only operator to reward customers with free daily SMSes as well as free minutes just for receiving calls," he continued.
Prepaid airtime can also be used to purchase 8ota data bundles of various sizes ranging from R50 for a 100MB bundle up to R250 for a 1GB bundle. 8ota prepaid airtime can be used to purchase BlackBerry Internet Service on a month-to-month basis, at R59 per month.
Since launch, 8ota has rapidly increased its airtime outlets to various retail chains and convenience stores, making 8ota airtime now available at more than 74 000 points of sale in South Africa. Added to this, 8ota has made scratch card vouchers available for sale at corner cafes, spaza shops and informal vendors.
Further to the existing formal and informal footprint, digital channels, including www.8time.co.za and FNB cellphone banking, have been introduced.
8ota
8ota is a high quality and innovative mobile service provider that provides South African consumers and enterprises the ability to talk more. Launched in October 2010, 8ota uses state-of-the-art radio access network (RAN), core and IT technology to deliver products that are of high value, simple to use and of superb quality. Additionally, 8ota has partnered with leading channel and distribution partners to ensure its products and services will be widely available to all South Africans.
The 8ota network will provide voice and data products/services over a unified 2G and 3G network, which leverages a number of key technological advantages, including: software definable radios, remote electrical tilt antennas, an all IP backhaul network as well as a tailor-made subscriber management platform. This ensures that we have good coverage countrywide and prevents congestion in the network keeping calls up and clear during peak traffic times. The billing systems deployment ensures that all our customers, and not only those using prepaid services, have access to real-time usage information so that they can understand their consumption moment by moment, to prevent being hit unexpectedly with high bills at the end of the month.
The RAN supports HSPA and is configured for downlink speeds up to 7.2Mbps and can be provisioned to support download speeds of up to 21Mbps. In addition the network hardware that is deployed allows for a seamless migration to LTE (4G). A further advantage of the selected dual-band network infrastructure is the significant power efficiency realised over other legacy systems (30% improvement). This translates into a very cost-effective, sustainable and environmentally-friendly network deployment.
The network architecture deployed is a fully IP-based network from base station to core. It allows maximum efficiency of the backhaul while providing the relevant prioritisation of mobile service flows, translating into a better quality of service and overall experience for the customer.
The 8ota network aims to further differentiate itself from its competitors by offering services never before seen in South Africa. In support of this the core, applications and services network makes use of cutting-edge technology that is IP-based, which enables flexible and innovative capabilities that provide 8ota the ability to quickly introduce new services to the market.
To put our products and services within easy reach of all South Africans, 8ota has created a countrywide sales network that includes the major consumer retailers and mobile wholesalers, as well as 132 Telkom Direct outlets across South Africa and the 8ota flagship stores.
8ota is supported by an extremely innovative and energetic employee base that has expertise across the technology, product development, sales and support services spectrum. Additionally, the management team is made up of professionals who understand the mobile industry deeply, and who have seized the opportunity to revitalise the mobile marketplace by launching a new, South African-owned mobile network operator.
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Telkom
Telkom is a leading communications services provider in South Africa and on the African continent. It had consolidated normalised operating revenue from continuing operations of R37 billion and normalised profit for the year from continuing operations of Telkom of R2.3 billion in the year ended 31 March 2010. Total assets from continuing operations amounted to R56.8 billion and equity attributable to the owners of Telkom to R29.9 billion as of 31 March 2010. The group generated normalised free cash flow of R5.5 billion for the year ended 31 March 2010.
As of 31 March 2010, it had approximately 4.3 million telephone access lines in service and 99.9% of its telephone access lines were connected to digital exchanges. It offers business, residential and payphone customers a wide range of services and products, including:
* Fixed-line voice services, including subscriptions and connections services, local, long distance, fixed-to-other operators and international voice services, interconnection services, which includes hubbing communications services and international voice over Internet Protocol services, subscription-based value-added voice services and customer premises equipment rental and sales;
* Data and Internet services, including domestic and international data transmission services, such as point to point leased lines, ADSL services, managed packet-based services and W-CDMA data services, managed data networking services and Internet access and related information technology services;
* Fixed, mobile, data and international communications services in Nigeria through our Multi-Links subsidiary; and
* Other services, including directory services, through Trudon, wireless data services, through Swiftnet, Internet services outside South Africa, through Africa Online and MWEB Africa and provision of management services to ICT through Telkom Management Services.
Following the launch of its mobile service, branded 8ota, on 18 October 2010, its focus into the future will be on offering fully converged products that marry mobile voice and data services with the quality and resilience of the fixed-line to both the enterprise and residential markets.
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