Following a storm of uncapped and cheaper ADSL offerings across the South African market, MTN has become the first of the incumbents to take a slice out of its own data costs.
On Sunday, the company will hack 84% from its out-of-bundle data costs, and will introduce new packages that will give customers more control over their mobile broadband usage.
Over the last month, local ADSL resellers and alternative Internet service providers have been warring to bring the cheapest uncapped ADSL offering to market. MWeb, Internet Solutions, Afrihost and @lantic have dominated the space.
The war started near the end of last year, with local businesses like Afrihost and Axxess taking on the market with far cheaper per-gig rates. However, news from incumbent operators - Telkom, MTN and Vodacom - has been scarce.
MTN now says it will bring down its out-of-bundle data rates to match the drop in ADSL bandwidth, from between 19c per MB to 65c per MB. Its old prices ranged from R1.20 to R1.50 per MB out-of-bundle.
The news will come as a relief to many MTN customers who have battled with managing data on their capped accounts over the last few months, racking up out-of-bundle costs to the tune of up to R90 000 on some accounts.
MTN will also allow customers to choose a by-minute offering, enabling customers to download as much data as they like in 90 minutes. “The speed will be limited to 128Kbps and is valid for 30 days with an additional 30-day carry-over of unused minutes.”
For a full table to compare MTN's old rates with the new ones, click here.
Telkom and Vodacom have yet to respond to MTN's price cut. However, Vodacom has hinted a cut is imminent for its customers. “Vodacom will ensure its offerings are competitive and is constantly looking at ways to improve its value offerings,” the company explained in a statement.
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