Vodacom / SA MTN / Cell- C in for a Loss
I’m a Swaziland citizen and living here at home, a country next to South Africa. Like many other Swazis, I do travel a lot into South Africa, in many occasions this is a one day trip. Often I have to make calls when in South Africa and it always is cheap calling using local networks.
Bad news for short time travellers us, there is no such thing as easy connection at low rates in South Africa anymore. It doesn’t matter the country you come from, you best option is making a call in a coin box or roaming from your home country cellular network service provider. The first option could be cheap, but very inconvenient. The second option is very expensive. Even if you’d want to connect to any cellular network in South Africa, you’d have to wait 24 hours before you get connected. Why bother then? It’s just not worth it.
Revenue Loss
South Africa is a country rich in tourism attraction and telecommunication is an important ingredient to it. Whatever the reason that forced South African policy makers to change the quick cellular network access conditions, it does work to the advantage of the cellular network service providers. Sadly, people now prefer the above mentioned options (roaming or using Telkom landline phones) when making international calls to the detriment of Cell-C, Vodacom and MTN South Africa.
The Attitude
After all, who cares when tourists get the inconvenience of having to register to get a SIM card and wait 24 hours before getting connected? Who cares when Vodacom, Cell-C and MTN make a loss on tourists? After all these guys are serious rip offs, so their chances have expired. Wrong attitude!
I want to believe that it is in the interest of South African government that tourists get less and less inconvenience when accessing social service utilities. This could be a borne of contention to policy makers in the country. There should be a way around this unfavourable condition for both tourists and mobile network service providers.
