Monday, September 29, 2008

Vuka

I didn't think they had another one in them. After the last price slash Zain did. [The name/brand change seems to have been a lot less problematic than I anticipated]. Can't remember what that last offer was, 4 bob or something to preferred guys?, but I honestly thought that was the last throw of the dice. If that didn't work then nothing would. Safaricom's rejoinder, as it always is, came swiftly and all of a sudden I was being offered the option of calling for 10 bob a minute during the day. Talk of stealing thunder. It made me wonder though, how the marketing/finance types think. Is one swallowing the painful pill of reduced/lost revenues, or has some guy done some statistical abracadabra and declared that in the end the company will actually make more money from increased volumes. Or were they just making insanely large amounts of profits before. I also wondered how the IT guys were faring. Marketing guys have a notorious reputation of selling stuff that isn't even made yet, or isn't ready at best. I remember some time back seeing an email from some senior guy in the company complaining how some customers, him included, had had considerable inconvenience using some new service we were testing. I remember staring at the email and asking, in amazement, "when did we go live?". But before I could say "Who the hell...", my boss was at my desk asking what was wrong and saying how we need to fix it ASAP. The email did have something about taking of disciplinary measures where necessary to reinforce the importance of the service working. "Let them try", I muttered to myself.

So when I heard about the Vuka tariff, I acknowledged that indeed I am clueless about the guys in the red [more like purple/yellow/some other colour] corner operate. Quite unbelievable actually. Call another network at the same cost as your own. At a reasonable price. Who would have envisioned such a day. I expected the typical rapid response from Safaricom. Haven't read the paper today so I don't know if there was some major press conference announcing YAT [Yet Another Tariff]. And what about Orange. They've just come into the market and have to adjust to changed conditions already. I think value added/non call based services will become increasingly important. I've been mulling over home internet access for instance. Don't really want anything that will involve some guy coming to the house to connect some equipment or other. Although, since my use may morph to more than just google, yahoo and blogger in the coming months, I'm not ready to discount that option yet. Apparently Zain's 3G [what exactly is broadband] offer is 3K a month for unlimited access [data downloaded]. Safaricom's equivalent is 4K for a maximum of 2GB worth of downloads. Is that a lot? Not sure. Both need a postpaid contract. Another reason to ponder. Not sure about Orange. Should check them out also.

I'll give it a little wait, before I switch.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Zain does not have 3g yet. What they have is Edge. 3G is a fast & furious kind of a connection. check faustchronicles.com for a review of the 3G by Safcom

Thursday, October 02, 2008 3:31:00 PM  
Blogger missWairema said...

i haven't been home for a year. i'm studying in SA. all i know is that the rates down here are more retarded than the ones at home. airtime finishes before the person on the other side of the line tells you you dialled the wrong number...!
i've been told about orange? is it really all that? i'm planning on getting a line when i come home...

Tuesday, October 21, 2008 4:53:00 PM  
Blogger Samborera said...

greamhouze - Not sure how I got it into my head that Zain's offer was 3G. Thought they had 3G in some parts. Parkside towers at least.

misscaffeineaddict - The way things are going, we'll be making calls at ridiculous rates [cheaper than Orange's promo of 1 bob a min?] by the time you come back. 2 years? 3years?

Friday, October 24, 2008 2:30:00 PM  

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