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Mobile operator to pay cash back for unused data

Cape Town - In a move set to cause waves through the mobile industry, a US carrier has announced a plan to refund subscribers for unused data.

According to a report on Phonearena, operator Republic Wireless is set to test a plan that pays consumers back for unused data at the end of the month.

This plan runs contrary to the general industry standard of expiring data that customers have paid for.

As a mobile virtual network operator Republic has arguably fewer costs associated with its network than traditional networks.

However, a report on BGR said that the Republic Plan will run for between four to eight weeks.

By US mobile standards, Republic is a small operator with a leaning toward coverage on the east cost of the country.

Data demand

The move is part of a wider programme among US operators that includes carrier grade Wi-Fi calling and automated handovers to Wi-Fi to save consumers data cost.

In SA, mobile operators have long argued that the policy of expiring data was part of necessary business operations to ensure a sustainable network.

Despite that though, the cost of data has declined significantly from around R40 per megabyte in the early 2000s to around R2/MB this year, out of bundle.

But as the demand for data increases exponentially, cost will play an increasingly large part, particularly among price sensitive consumers.

According to data from Ericsson's Mobile Data Traffic Growth report for 2013 to 2019, the region's data appetite is huge and expected to grow at 65% to 2019 and beyond.

Put into perspective, mobile data in the region was at 37 000 terabytes (TB) per month in 2013, and that jumped to 76 000TB by the end of 2014, on its way to a mammoth 764 000TB by the end of 2019.

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