Together with activating its high-speed HSPA+ network in Gauteng today, Cell C also announced prepaid and monthly postpaid options for its allowance-limited broadband services.
CEO Lars Reichelt stressed that the cheaper data offerings - prepaid bundles between 100MB and 1GB - need competitive prices, because these are the products used by “those who are not that well off”.
Reichelt said increasing connectivity is the company's mission, citing statistics from the Department of Communications, ANC and independent sources, which all point out that only between 2% and 6% of South Africans have Internet access.
Cell C's new prepaid bundles on its high-speed network are competitively priced. The options available are 100MB for R50, 250MB for R100, 500MB for R150 and 1000MB for R250. Across this range of offerings, the per-megabyte costs work out to 50c, 40c, 30c and 25c, respectively.
These prices are exactly the same as those offered by Telkom's 8ta, but cheaper than similar packages from Vodacom and MTN.
Vodacom's tiers are 110MB, 300MB, 600MB and 1.2GB, with respective prices of R88, R139, R189 and R289. Costs on MTN are R79 for 75MB, R149 for 300MB, 500MB for R189 and 1GB for R289.
Cell C also has a 2GB prepaid offering, but the price for this - R400 - is less competitive than the rates on the other networks. Reichelt did point out that it would be more cost-effective to opt for the 2GB postpaid offering, which costs R149 a month, or R1 499 up-front (for a year's access), including a high-speed modem. The 5GB postpaid offering costs R2 999 up-front, or R299 a month.
It also confirmed the 2GB and 5GB postpaid bundles are an introductory offer. Reichelt declined to comment on how long this offer would be valid for.
Competing postpaid plans from Vodacom, 8ta and MTN are more expensive than the Cell C monthly offerings. Vodacom charges R385 for a 2GB bundle and R985 for a 5GB package. MTN has no 5GB offering, but a 2GB monthly allowance costs R389. 8ta's postpaid data bundles are 1.5GB (R280) and 3.2GB (R500).
Asked if the operator would consider a 10GB offering, Reichelt said that so far the two extant bundles have proven popular, but joked that a higher-capacity bundle could be offered if people used the company's Tell Trevor service to request it.
Cell C's up-front price includes its high-speed 21.1Mbps data modem and a year's access. Data contracts on the other networks span a 24-month period when a data modem is included. If a user has a data modem, no contract is needed.
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