The Vodacom Group has announced that the new tariff structure, of R2,99 per minute for all pre-paid calls made during peak times, has been approved by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa).
The new tariff structure represents a reduction of up to 17% and will impact on 13-million Vodacom subscribers, the company said.
This is applicable to network calls, as well as calls to the fixed-line monopoly Telkom and other cellphone networks and is effective from September 5, it added.
“The Happy Hours rate, announced on Friday last week, of R1,49 [for all peak calls between 5pm and 8pm for Vodacom-to-Vodacom calls] represented a discount of up to 55% for pre-paid users, now with the new rate of R2,99 per minute, we will further extend the benefit in the peak call period,” said Alan Knott-Craig, group CEO at Vodacom.
“We expect traffic to increase thereby offsetting to some degree the cost of these significant price reductions. The industry is currently growing more rapidly than it ever has in its 11-year history with new gross connections exceeding a record 1,3-million new customers in July this year alone.”
MTN on August 14 announced its WOW WOW package which offers its users a discount of up to 50% on calls between 5pm and 9pm — this was ahead of Vodacom’s Happy Hours offering which was introduced on Monday, August 30.
MTN also said its new package saw more than 100 000 new pre-paid subscribers joining MTN in just two days during the its starter pack value promotion two weeks ago. – I-Net Bridge