Late last week both MTN and Vodacom released their newest data service: 3.6Mbps HSDPA. HSDPA is essentially an upgraded version the third generation of cell networks known as 3G. HSDPA stands for “High-Speed Downlink Packet Access” and when initially announced it operated at speeds of 1.8Mbps.
This new announcement means that the service is effectively double the speed and thus doubles the quality. Vodacom and MTN’s offerings have become more and more popular with the public as they offer a reasonable price and excellent speed. There does seem to be some sort of problem with this newer, faster speed service.
Understandably the price war between Vodacom and MTN is going to result in relatively similar prices. On both their websites I looked up the price for their cheapest data contract, 500 Megs (MTN offers 350 megs but this would preclude a decent comparison). Both cost 249 rand and should come with a modem on a 24-month contract.
Now for the past few months this has been standard practice. One company undercuts the other in price and the other responds with the exact same price cut. At the moment the situation seems to have stabilised at this price but with the release of the 3.6Mbps version of the service Vodacom has decided to tack on an extra 50 rand to the base price. This would mean that a 500 Meg contract would cost 300 bucks.
The reason this price point is such a sensitive one is due to the fact that for an extra 50 bucks, at 350 rand the user gets a one-gig contract, double the data amount. Frankly I have no idea why Vodacom is choosing to charge more for the same service. I have no doubt in my mind that people are going to switch to MTN in droves since it just makes financial sense to have the exact same product at a lower cost.
This is really silly on Vodacom’s part and I think they will feel the pinch and change the cost fairly soon.
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thanks for the information > now i know what is HSDPA means .