Vodacom has termed its recent tariff increases an adjustment which will see users pay less.
The company says subscribers to its Talk 100 package will save 0.62% on their monthly bills, while Talk 200 users will save 0.33% and BusinessCall users 1.01%. But this is very different from the calculations made by the Independent Regulatory Authority of SA (ICASA), which found that Vodacom will increase the rates on these packages by 4.2%, 2.3% and 0.9% respectively.
Robert Pasley, Vodacom`s director for corporate strategy, says that while ICASA makes its calculations based on a standard basket of services, Vodacom made its calculations based on the calling patterns of its average subscriber.
Much of the discrepancy is explained by the fact that the company says Vodacom subscribers calling other Vodacom subscribers generate most of its traffic. The cost of Vodacom-to-Vodacom calls has been decreased from R1.80 to R1.60 per minute on most of its packages. However, calls to MTN or Cell C users will now cost R2, up from the previous R1.80 per minute.
Off-peak cell-to-cell calls will also increase from R0.75 to R0.84 per minute.
Vodacom says its per-second billed packages will see call rates 15% more expensive on average than similar per-minute billed packages.
"In principle, subscribers making longer calls are better off on per-minute, while conversely subscribers making shorter calls are better off on per-second," says Pasley. According to his calculations, users with an average call duration of less than 90 seconds will save money if billed per second.
The Vodacom per-second prepaid product, 4U, which is aimed at teenagers and young adults, will be billed a 6c per second or R3.60 per minute.
The company says the introduction of per-second billing is not linked to Cell C`s November launch, despite the fact that Cell C has already advertised per-second billing as one of its offers.
"We have not made any conscious effort to investigate their tariffs," says Pasley.
MTN has also introduced per-second billing on some of its packages in its annually revised tariff plan.
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