Third cellphone operator Cell C has taken its first shot at offering its customers “a much better deal” on data packages.

Newly-appointed Cell C CEO Alan Knott-Craig says the operator is living up to its promise of better data prices, with the introduction of a trio of data promotions for postpaid and prepaid customers.

Cell C has more than halved the prices of what it says are “some of its most popular data packages” in a promotion on one prepaid and two postpaid packages, set to run until 31 July.

Prepaid customers will now get Cell C's 24GB SIM-only package, giving them 2GB a month for a year, for R1 299 once off, down R700 from the original R1 999. Those looking to include a speedstick with a maximum theoretical capability of 21.6Mbps – the “21.6Mbps speedstick” – on the same package will pay R1 999 once-off, down R 1 000, from R2 999.

Postpaid customers will have a choice of a 500MB SIM-only package for R49 per month (10c per MB), down R60 from R109 per month, or including a speedstick with a maximum theoretical capability of 7.2Mbps – the “7.2Mbps speedstick” – for a total of R69 per month. Cell C's 2GB SIM-only postpaid offering will now cost R99 per month (5c per MB), down R180 from R279 per month, or R119 per month with a 7.2Mbps speedstick.

Knott-Craig says data products, which run off the operator's HSPA+ network using a 900MHz band, are aimed at satisfying South Africans' demand for a data platform with affordable rates. “Affordable data is critical to the development of an economy, and is a powerful education enabler.”

Existing business rules apply to all data packages with an out-of-bundle rate of 39c/MB. Cell C says customers can use data as and when they want, without their speeds being throttled or their usage limited to certain times of the day. “Effective data speeds remain a factor of concurrent utilisation.”

The latest promotion follows two others introduced by Knott-Craig earlier this month, for the prepaid and enterprise markets respectively. The Supa-Woza prepaid promotion gives customers on the all-day, per-second or standard tariff plans 50% bonus airtime if they recharge with R10 or more in a day, while a least-cost routing deal for South African corporates saw the price of mobile calls dropping to as low as 99c a minute.

Article courtesy of It Web. www.itweb.co.za