SA broadband providers slash bandwidth prices

Neotel

Neotel has unveiled new, and improved broadband packages. The company has launched new NeoConnect Home and NeoGo Data products which provide far better value for money than their existing products.

The new packages are: NeoConnect Home, NeoConnect Home Plus, NeoConnect Home Exec, NeoGo Data 2GB and NeoGo Data 3GB.

It is understood that Neotel will run these new products as promotional offers which will compliment their existing NeoConnect and NeoGo product ranges.

New NeoConnect products

The NeoConnect Home service offers consumers a NeoGo data card, a cordless Neotel phone, 50 any-time minutes and 5GB of data per month, for R299 per month on a 24 month contract.

The service is also available at R349 on a 12 month contract, or at R249 per month on a month-to-month contract with a R799 up-front payment.

Neotel’s NeoConnect Home Plus service offers consumers a NeoGo data card, a cordless Neotel phone, a wireless Netgear 3G router, 100 any-time minutes and 5GB of data per month, for R399 per month on a 24 month contract.

The service is also available at R499 on a 12 month contract, or at R349 per month on a month-to-month contract with a R1,599 up-front payment.

Neotel’s NeoConnect Home Exec service offers consumers a cordless Neotel phone, a NeoFlex Data router, 100 anytime minutes and 5GB of data per month, for R499 per month on a 24 month contract.

The service is also available at R699 on a 12 month contract, or at R349 per month on a month-to-month contract with a R2,199 up-front payment.

New NeoGo data card products

Neotel’s new NeoGo data card products undercut the current 2GB and 3GB promotional data offers from Cell C, 8ta and MTN.

Neotel’s NeoGo Data 2GB service offers subscribers a 3.1Mbps NeoGo data card and 2GB of data at R99 per month on a month-to-month contract with an up-front data card cost of R399.

The company’s NeoGo Data 3GB service is similar to the 2GB offering, but is priced at R179 per month on a 12 month contract without any up-front costs.

Vodacom

Vodacom today (24 August 2011) announced reductions in data prices for prepaid customers that will be effective from 19 September 2011.

This follows similar data price reductions that were made for contract customers recently.

Customers buying MyMeg 100 will pay 39% less, with the price per MB reduced from 80c (for the previous MyMeg 110) to 49c.

Customers who previously bought MyMeg 175 at a price of 68c per MB, will now pay 40c per MB for the MyMeg 250, a saving of 42% per MB.

“The average MB rate saving across all packages from MyMeg 10 to MyGig 1.5 is more than 22%,” Vodacom said in a press statement.

In addition to the price reductions, Vodacom will run a ‘double your prepaid data’ promotion from 19 September to 31 October 2011.

The promotion will give customers double data for the same price when they buy bigger bundles which include MyGig 1, MyGig 1.5, MyGig 2 and MyGig 2.5 prepaid and Top Up once-off bundles during the promotional period.

Speaking about these changes, Vodacom’s Chief Commercial Officer Romeo Kumalo said: “Internet access isn’t just a nice to have; it’s an essential part of modern life. With these data price reductions, more customers than ever before will be able to benefit from Internet connectivity.”

For the purposes of gaming, wireless internet connections aren’t ideal, but they are also not as bad as one may think. MyGaming recently took an in-depth look at latencies across the various broadband connection types found in South Africa. Many SA gamers will comfortably play less response-time sensitive games in genres such as RTS and MMO on their wireless broadband connections without too much trouble.

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