Data price cuts ease financial pressure on students

Students will save more on data as the big four South African mobile service providers – Vodacom, MTN, CellC and Telkom – have all cut data prices or introduced better value products at the beginning of April this year.

Vodacom cut the cost of 1GB 30-day data from R99 to R85, introduced a new 2GB package, and upped the data on existing smaller packages for the same price. Telkom introduced a new SIM package, Thola More, which replaced the previous SIM Sonke plan and rewards customers with additional data, voice minutes or SMS’s for recharging with R5 or more.

Both MTN and CellC started to offer better value LTE at-home router packages. MTN’s MyMTN Home package starts at R269 for 120GB combined data, and CellC’s new Home Connecta Flexi package starts at R59 per month for 5GB anytime and 5GB night data. MTN has also cut some prepaid data package prices with 10GB anytime and 10GB night data being reduced to R149.

This is good news for students, some of whom still report struggling with access to online classes and academic services from home despite mobile data being provided by the university.

Siyalo Nkosi, a third-year movement sciences student at the North-West University (NWU) said, “The university gives us 30GB data but I go through it pretty quickly. Now I have schoolwork, my data is finished and I have to come to campus, and I often have to buy data for times when I cannot come to school.” Nkosi said he buys additional data roughly twice a week and spends around R400 a month. As a Vodacom user he could now save up to R60, a 15% saving month to month.

Alexander Kondwani, a second-year masters student in nutrition at the NWU, said he often has to go to campus or rely on mobile data purchases when his at-home data runs out. “At our apartment we are given about 10GB but when we have a number of webinars or Zoom meetings during the month it is not enough, it is finished before the end of the month.” Kondwani, who reported spending over R800 a month on additional mobile data, said he is very excited about the price cuts.

The cuts were brought on by an order from the South African Competition Commission (CompCom) in December 2019 for South African mobile service providers to reduce data costs or face legal action.

A report by the commission found that behaviour among the service providers was anti-competitive and particularly exploitative of poorer users who often bought smaller data bundles.

Following recommendations by the commission to cut the prices of certain packages by between 30% and 50%, negotiations with various mobile service providers led to a first round of price cuts in April 2020, and further price cuts followed this April.