Has data fallen? Who has the best deal in SA?
Are you looking for a good data deal? Who is the cheapest in town? Here is a look at data costs of each service provider.
Vodacom have recently announced that their data costs have fallen by more than 15% during the course of the last year. This is somewhat unsurprising due to the ongoing #DataMustFall campaign that has flooded social media. South Africans, it seems, have had enough of the exorbitant charges that come with data.
We thought we would take a look at the main service providers in the country and what you can expect to pay with each. We took a look at the standard data bundle packages from each provider. These are not inclusive of packages unique to each provider, but are standard data bundles for both contract and prepaid.
Which company comes out tops in the ‘Data Deal War’?
| Data Bundle Costs | ||||
| Vodacom (R) | Cell C (R) | MTN (R) | Telkom (R) | |
| 5MB | – | – | 4.00 | – |
| 15MB | 9.00 | – | – | – |
| 20MB | – | – | 12.00 | – |
| 25MB | – | – | – | 7.25 |
| 30MB | 12.00 | – | – | – |
| 50MB | – | – | 25.00 | 14.50 |
| 60MB | – | 20.00 | – | – |
| 100MB | 29.00 | 29.00 | 35.00 | 29.00 |
| 200MB | – | 49.00 | – | – |
| 250MB | 59.00 | – | – | 39.00 |
| 300MB | – | – | 85.00 | – |
| 500MB | 99.00 | 99.00 | 105.00 | 69.00 |
| 1G | 149.00 | 149.00 | 160.00 | 99.00 |
| 2G | 249.00 | 249.00 | 260.00 | 139.00 |
| 3G | – | 299.00 | 330.00 | – |
| 5G | 399.00 | 399.00 | 430.00 | – |
| 10G | 599.00 | 599.00 | 650.00 | – |
| 20G | 999.00 | 999.00 | 1250.00 | – |
For those who only care about the bottom line, the winner is clearly Telkom…
The small print and out-of-bundle rates
Each service provider offers various packages to suit your unique needs. What has to be considered for MTN, however, is the fact that the data has a lifespan. Depending on the amount of data you buy, it will expire. Most only last 30 days, and, once you buy above 5G, that will only last 60 days. Should you want it to not expire and roll over, you will need to contact MTN for this to happen.
In many cases, most people have found themselves out of data. The out-of-bundle charges look like this (per MB):
- Vodacom: R1.50
- Cell C: R1.10
- MTN: R0.99
- Telkom: R0.29
Brought to you by CompareGuru
