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Johannesburg - Users on Fin24 are asking more questions about the value of contract offerings from mobile networks in South Africa in light of recent research.
On Wednesday, Fin24 published a story about researchers who say that Cell C provided the best value for money in terms of phone contracts in South Africa for the first quarter of 2015.
Research ICT Africa put together what they called their post-paid value index (PVI), which measures the value customers get in terms of their monthly mobile contract subscription costs.
READ MORE: SA's best mobile phone contracts revealed
The researchers determined this PVI rating by adding the value of bundled minutes, SMS and data and then dividing that figure by the monthly subscription fee.
And according to the findings, Cell C had an average PVI score in the first quarter of 7.35, Telkom Mobile 6.48, Vodacom 2.87 and MTN 1.33.
Fin24 user Brian Grose said the researchers also need to look at quality of network services from mobile operators.
“Nothing wrong with the figures but I do think a comparison on dropped calls, data speeds would offer a better conclusion. Doesn't help to have a high index but you always dropping calls or connection is so bad you hear nothing. Also data on Cell C is permanently running on Edge which is oh so slow. They have to offer more because you getting less,” Grose wrote to Fin24.
Fin24 user Johan Botha has written at length as to why he thinks there is little value for mobile contract consumers, regardless of whichever network they choose.
"After reading a great deal on the state of cellular operators and service providers in SA I come to the following conclusion.
In the first place, the person proclaiming the customer to be king and the most important person in any business must have had a toilet cubicle for a palace. Most customers in the case of cellular businesses find themselves to be on the losing end of the stick all the way, regardless of any well thought out jargon of any marketing division or retail point of sale involved in trying to make them think otherwise.
You will have no choice than getting to grips with the fact that you will either join a huge company, the likes of MTN or Vodacom, and experience good coverage and LTE connectivity at a premium - by paying much more for having good points of retail services as well as the contracts they offer, while being offered less meat in terms of allocated talk time, data etc... The alternative will be to make peace with the fact that you will be lured to smaller networks, the likes of CellC and Telkom Mobile with great contractual offerings, but poor and largely developing network infrastructure with resulting variances in coverage and connectivity and data speeds and disgraceful service delivery at their point of sale. In my case personally, I can commend Telkom Mobile for good service at their Telkom store (yes, believe it or not, fortunately we still have one) at the Mountain Mill shopping complex in Worcester and as far as I can make out great service regarding their network locally as well.
To conclude, I think that the sooner larger networks realise that the customer they disregard as king in all respects may not be brainless idiots and cash cows for their own financial endeavours after all and find themselves to be cash-strapped bargain hunters in current economic circumstances on the lookout for value for their hard earned money, they may have less reason to share a healthy growing market with smaller rivals. For yes, I am very sure smaller networks notice this fact and they are busy cashing in on this.
And yes sir/madame customer, the key words here are calculated choice, and be informed enough in making the right one without lending out your ears to marketing slang and colourful advertising."
Disclaimer: All letters and comments published in Fin24 have been independently written by members of the Fin24 community. The views are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent those of Fin24.
