Vodacom has announced that it will implement a below-inflation average price increase on selected packages on 1 April 2019.
No specific details on the price increases were provided, and the announcement was made as part of a statement on new out-of-bundle (OOB) data rates.
A number of tariff changes will be made to Vodacom’s packages to align with ICASA’s End-User and Subscriber Service Charter regulations which take effect from 28 February 2019.
The company said these changes would include an OOB rate reduction of up to 70%, in addition to revised data rollover mechanisms.
Vodacom will lower its out-of-bundle rates from R0.99 per MB for prepaid customers and R0.89 for hybrid and contract customers to R0.49 per MB across the board.
Additionally, customers who sign up for Vodacom’s new Data Refill feature will have an effective OOB rate of R0.30 per MB once their bundle is depleted.
These changes will come into effect on 1 March 2019.
Data rollover and transfer
Vodacom also announced it has adapted its systems to align with ICASA’s new regulations, following the authority voicing its concern about the network’s approach to data rollover.
The mobile operator said that contract customers who are subscribed to packages which include data will continue to have data rolled over for one month, free of charge.
Remaining data on bundle purchases by all customers will be rolled over at no additional charge if a customer purchases the same bundle, the company said.
It added that it would announce more changes to this system in the near future.
“In addition to simply implementing the ICASA regulations, we have gone further by slashing out-of-bundle data rates by between 45%-70% to ensure increased value to customers,” said Vodacom.
“Additionally, rollover of data will be free. Over the past three years, Vodacom has reduced the effective price of data by more than 40% which shows that our pricing transformation journey continues to deliver real value to customers.”
Vodacom customers will also be able to transfer data that is about to expire other users on the Vodacom network for fees ranging from free for 50MB, up to a maximum of R20 for 1GB.
Source: eNCA
