Today, the Competition Commission announced that Vodacom has worked with it to come up with price reductions and increased transparency. Especially when it comes to data pricing and customer understanding.
Vodacom has agreed to a two-year reduction strategy that will see up to a 30% reduction in data prices. Apparently, they cannot give actual figures at the moment, as it may affect pricing decisions made by its competitors. Which is understandable.
We did get an example, though. Vodacom has announced that a 1GB monthly bundle may drop to R99 from R149 — and this will include VAT. While 100 bucks is a far better price to pay, we’re not convinced quite yet. Like, you can get 1GB of data from Rain for half that and it doesn’t expire…
Data is finally falling
The mobile operator also announced that smaller bundles (that are generally used by lower-income groups) will see the biggest change with bundles becoming even more affordable. Yes, we don’t have actual figures right now but will soon.
In addition to data price drops, Vodacom will make a bunch of sites zero-rated on its network, specifically focusing on education, job seekers, health and wellness and internet search. Through its ConnectU platform, and by partnering with government websites and Wikipedia, the network will make a host of content available for free. A.k.a. You won’t need data on your phone to access these sites.
While it all sounds good and well, we would like to see other mobile operators follow a similar path. We’ll have to see how they react to this announcement. All of Vodacom’s changes to comply with the Competition Commission will be effective from 1 April 2020.