iPhone 4 MTN vs Vodacom

As you may be aware, the iPhone 4 has finally come to our dorpies in good
ol' SA and was launched by MTN and Vodacom with Midnight Launch Things.
From what I've read MTN had a spectacular show compared to Vodacom's dismal approach.

This blog at Zahira.co.za describes how MTN targeted specific people and
how well they managed their event relative to technology

Cape Town Girl also describes how holograms were present at MTN's launch
and the type of crowd who were invited , like popular tech bloggers such as Marc Forrest
and everyone could try out the phone and have a decent relative conversation with each other
because everyone was in the same mindset. What I found to be really cool was how they threw
in the #iYoba hashtag, now that's thought.

I have hardly seen anything blogged about Vodacom's launch but my impression was that they
just had an open party not much planning and most of the show was chilling until 12am.

I wasn't at any of the events sadly, wish I was though.

Now everyone's been blogging, micro blogging and chatting about the prices..
It looks like MTN K.O'd Vodacom with tags of:

R379(150MB data bundle) , R429 (300MB data bundle) for the 16GB iPhone with R200 "Airtime" per month.
R429 (150MB data bundle) , R479 (300MB data bundle) for the 32GB model with R200 "Airtime" per month.



Each package has the once off fee of R209
for the SIM and Connection story
and the iPhone is free, with terms and conditions ofcourse.
MTN iPhone deals


Initially Vodacom only had one offer on the table(and strangely has been selling out)

R925 per month for the 16GB , you get the iPhone for free on this high end package but
it is seriously high end.
It includes:
500 "Minutes"
250MB Data
100 SMS's
That is the iPhone 4 16GB on the Talk 500 package, Terms and conditions apply.
Vodacom iPhone 4 Deals

Update:
Vodacom now have another deal for the 32GB iPhone 4:
R364 per month on the Business Call  package
click here




If you're not aware there's a difference between "Airtime" and "Minutes".
Some packages offer you 200 Minutes whether it is off-peak only or anytime.
Now Airtime is not just for calling and spending minutes talking, Airtime is charged at a
specific rate which could change depending on peak or off-peak time.

The beauty of Airtime is that once your data runs out you don't immediately get additional
charges on your monthly bill but instead are billed from the included Airtime,
same goes for SMS.
Once you've depleted your included SMS bundle it will be deducted off the included Airtime.
So if you play your cards right you can decide to be an SMSer a Surfer or a Caller in priority.
Pretty cool right?

Anyway as of tonight Vodacom has matched MTN's offers
albeit with subtle differences in Data and Airtime.

R379 per month gets you:
R275 minutes of Airtime, not minutes,
110MB data
absolutely no bundled SMS's

That's the iPhone 16GB free on the Top Up 275s Package, terms and conditions apply.
At the moment the Vodacom site doesn't state whether you get 275 Minutes or R275 Airtime.
But consider "Talk" packages are the one's that come with Minutes and "Top Up"
packages are the one's with Airtime.




Now I've been phoning around and around about the iPhone 4 at various stores.
You can purchase the iPhone 4 in cash without a contract if you so wish.
from Vodacom and MTN you can pick it up from around R8200 - R10000 for the 16GB.
I say R10000 because when I phoned the Vodashop in Sandton City they had no idea how
much it costs and just hit a ballpark for 10k , mean while not too far away at the
Mandela Square the clued up lady who answered my phone call distinctly stated R8200 for 16GB

Other places like CaCell have it for +R10000 , but should drop soon as their current
prices are from the importing they've been doing.

Now the best I've seen for a cash deal is from Digicape:
R7219 for the 16GB , not on their site at present.

One insanely bizarre and annoying thing that's been happening is freakin' pre-ordering or
getting on a waiting list and still not getting anything because stock being sold out.
WTF

I signed up on that darn Vodacom pre order they had a few months back as soon as it appeared
and they sent me and alot of people an SMS saying, oops too bad but it was sold out any way.
What?? I mean we sign up for these things for more info and keep up to date but you still hear
about everything in blogs and tweets and not one damn peep from Vodacom's email or SMS systems.
Nee boet. I phoned Digicape in Sandton Yesterday Morning and registered on their site as well ages ago but they still went and sold out todays stock! Why Patricia Why!!??

My last interesting thing left I have to tell you is something I picked up today from MTN.
Vodacom isn't going to do this at this stage by the way.
On MTN , as you know , you can get the iPhone 4 16GB free for R379 per month.
Now , throw in R3700 and you can reduce your subscription to R200 per month.
I think it's R200 , it could be R250 or so , I can't remember what the MTN man said right now.
But that's another KO(ish) punch from MTN into Vodacoms already Blue face.

I can show some hectic tables and graphs on how much value this all works out for you per month
and per 24 months but i'm sure you can do the math.

Thanks for reading.
Peace.

on a side note, you don't actually get the phone free with those R379 deals.
The iPhone is being financed into the specific package over the 24 months.
That actually means you pay for the airtime , lets say on Vodacom, R275 x 24 = R6600 and then R104 x 24 = R2496 for the phone . hmmmm....

Vodacom and their useless Data Bundles

Last month I purchased a 2GB Data Bundle (Standard) for my prepaid number from Vodacom which

cost a hefty R389 the reason I purchased it was because I had a serious deadline for a website I was

building and needed the data as I wasn't at home or at the office where I have access to an ADSL line, now I purchased 2GB for the Rand/MB rate , I don't know who in their right mind wants to spend

R2 per MB especially when you're uploading lots of media or downloading it. 19 cents per MB is a lot better than R2 and unfortunately you need to spend over R300 for a bundle to get that rate. Granted that

Vodacom will be giving up to 50% more data for free on Bundles under 3GB starting on the 1st of May , which is quite nice you can read about it here , here and here , I will tell you something that will make you think twice about that.

When you're buying a data bundle from Vodacom , think carefully how you're going to use it because for you to make it worth while you have to use it all , when the time comes for it to expire (which can be confusing to figure out) you will lose every last kilobyte you didn't use and all your Rand you spent buying them. Take me for example two days from now I'm going to lose about 1.9GB of data , as it will expire and there's not a thing I can do about it. I want to try to use it all up if I can but so far I've only been able to use about 100MB from the bundle I purchased , mainly for that emergency I had with the deadline. 95% of my bundle will certainly go for waste and so will 95% of my money. In a fair world , or what I think should be fair , it should cost me R19.45 for the 100MB I used. Instead it will cost me R368,55 for the 100MB I used which equates to R3.70 per MB, fantastic deal from Vodacom. I will never buy a bundle ever again. If you're like me who thought you could extend your expire window by adding more data from buying another bundle you're wrong. And it's easy to have that misconception , if you're used to buying more prepaid data for your ADSL line , you will know that it wont expire at a certain date and be rendered void. I purchase prepaid data from Webafrica or Afrihost and that NEVER expires , and it costs much less. I should have just used the standard rate of R2 per MB and I wouldn't have been in this ridiculous situation with Vodacom, I've phoned them about options on how I can keep my data and extend my expire window and they just kept telling me how it will expire and it's how the network operates and I can't do a damn thing about it.

Here's a screenshot from my phone of my Data Balance

See how I've added 5MB , which has a completely separate expire date. Who ever thought that was cool should be pointed at and stared down in public constantly.

Why don't they let you extend the time for your bundle to expire? Why can't the support guys help me out? Why are they being so stuck up?

On the other hand with the "Advanced Data Bundles" Vodacom offers , which includes the "Out of bundle rate = In Bundle Rate" feature. it costs R4099 to get a rate of 20c per MB , how in Sam Hill does that work? Yes yes it's twice as fast as standard , cool awesome.
R389 for 19c/MB versus R4099 for 20c/MB . Yeah...
I'm not sure if I'm correct but according to this Vodacom states “The offer applies, regardless of whether the customer subscribes to a Data Contract or buys a once-off bundle to use on an ad-hoc basis and is available on both the Broadband Advanced and the Broadband Standard services,”
Excuse me if i'm wrong here , what the hell , the only "feature" the Advanced Data Bundle would offer is the out of bundle rate = in bundle rate

Take a look at this
According to what Vodacom said from the 1st of May things will look like this:
Using 2GB as the bundle

• For Advanced it will cost 23c/MB (if it costs R599 for 2GB adding 512MB free(2048+512=2560)
• For Standard it will cost 17c/MB (if it costs R389 for 2GB adding 307MB free(2048+307=2355)

If you're not going going out of your bundle which one would you pick? Remember both will be 14.4Mbps since someone(Vodacom) said
"available on both the Broadband Advanced and the Broadband Standard services"

Seriously why should there even be a charge for going out of your bundle? Is it because None of the ADSL ISP's offer the amazing benefit of going out of your bundle? Because I prefer those other ISP's who can let me buy my data at a far better rate with no flippin' out of bundle rate and no bundle expire date. Heck you can get unlimited data from Mweb and Afrihost for less. Thank you Vodacom for wasting my money you greedy rapist.

Follow Me CrimsonZA
complain to this guy


Peace.