International calling from your South African PrePaid cell phone: if you’re with Vodacom, then you’re getting ripped off!

If you have a Vodacom PrePaid cell phone, then here are some tips to avoid the very high Vodacom call charges (R10 per minute).  One could use an MTN SIM card and save over R6.51 per minute!  Or dial a local CellC number and save over R6.40 per minute – here’s how:

A friend asked me how much it was to call Italy from his MTN Prepaid cell phone – here are the outcomes from my investigations:
Vodacom PrePaid cell phone to Italy from a PayAsYouGo phone is R10 per minute. http://www.vodacom.co.za/pkgcr.do?action=getpkgmenus&pkgTypeId=2&pageId=21

{If you had a contract: Vodacom Talk120: International Calls (Per minute):
Off Peak: 0.99 + Telkom Off-peak (landline = 0.83; mobile = 2.82) ===> Off peak to a landline: R1.82 per minute; Off peak to a mobile: R3.81 per minute.
Peak: 2.10 + Telkom Peak (landline = 0.99; mobile = 3.19) ===> Peak to a landline: R3.09 per minute; Peak to a mobile: R5.29 per minute.
http://www.telkom.co.za/products_services/internationalcallservice/cost.html
}

 

For MTN PrePaid Classic: it costs (per minute) R3.49 to dial a mobile phone directly in Italy, and R2.90 to a landline in Italy (billed on a per second basis).
http://www.mtn.co.za/Travel/International%20Calling/Pages/default.aspx?index=2 

Wow, seems like MTN is MUCH cheaper than Vodacom…. But still, VoipBuster to Italy landline is free for 120 days!  See here for more details: http://handytechtips.blogspot.com/2009/08/voipbuster-over-skypeout-verdict-read.html

You could also dial this CellC number (084 198 0001) and speak to over 60 international countries for no extra cost: http://handytechtips.blogspot.com/2008/10/make-cellc-call-and-speak-to-over-60.html . This works for landlines only in Italy.
{Works for cell phones in these countries: USA (most networks); Canada; China; Singapore; Hong Kong.}

Costs of calls to CellC:
For Vodacom pre-paid Vodago to CellC: to Value-Added Services Off-Peak: R1.08; Peak: R3.60 http://www.vodacom.co.za/pkgcr.do?action=getpkgsgroups&pkgTypeId=2&pkgGroupId=8&packageId=17

For Vodacom contract Talk 240 to CellC: Value-Added Services Off-Peak: R0.98; Peak: R1.88 http://www.vodacom.co.za/pkgcr.do?action=getpkgsgroups&pkgTypeId=1&pkgGroupId=1&packageId=4

For MTN PayG Classic to CellC: Peak: R2.85; Off peak: R1.60 per minute.

See here for details of MTN’s peak and off peak calling times: http://www.mtn.co.za/Support/faq/NewSubscribers/Pages/MakingTakingcalls.aspx

So, HTT’s verdict:  since my friend was already with MTN (whew), his cheapest option to call a landline in Italy @off peak times is to dial the local CellC number which would cost R1.60 per minute. 
At peak times he should rather dial direct (ie: MTN call) @R2.90 per minute (the CellC number’s cost is R2.85 but the call setup time (while you’re keying in the international number on the CellC call) will use up time and nullify the 5c per minute savings).
If he needed to call a cell phone in Italy (the CellC number doesn’t cover cell phones in Italy yet) then he would need to dial directly @R3.49 per minute.

HTT’s verdict for other Vodacom PrePaid users: rather than paying the R10 per minute, get an MTN SIM card for your international calls.

But, for all of you that read this far… these costs can be slashed further if you use VOIP – even on your cell phone.  Install NimBuzz and configure a SIP connection using your VoipBuster account.  Then for the 1st 120 days you’ll pay nothing for landline calls to major international cities except for the data costs (R2 per MB on prepaid if you don’t have a data bundle). See here for more info:  VoipBuster over SkypeOut: the verdict? Read this for hands on tips on saving on your phone bill

If you use less than 150MB of cell phone data per month then you should be buying your data from G-Connect

Following on from the ADSL pricing article, here’s a comparison of Vodacom data costs vs G-Connect’s data costs, and it seems that for users that use less than 150MB of data per month, it’s cheaper to purchase from G-Connect. 
Note: If you have a SIM card from the following then sorry, you’ll need to purchase another SIM card: Pay-as-you-go, Top-Up SIMS, Nashua Mobile, Autopage Cellular, MTN, Virgin Mobile and CellC.


G-Connect https://gconnect.wirelessg.co.za/pricing.aspx Only 62c/MB (compared to Vodacom’s R1.85/MB). That’s R12.40 for 20MB (compared to Vodacom’s R28.00 for 20MB).

I see that they also have a Happy Hour (every weekday from 17:00 - 20:00) for 55c per MB
and
Super Happy Weekend (Saturday and Sunday from 00:00:00 to 23:59:59) for 59c per MB.      

   
So, buying 150MB of data from GConnect will save you R26.00.

Here are G-Connect’s FAQs: https://gconnect.wirelessg.co.za/stuck.aspx

Here’s some more info to help compare ADSL costs (from Hellkom.co.za): ADSL Accounts

Calculator: What's the best cell phone or contract for me?

So, your contract is about to run out and now it's time to find the best phone and/or contract for yourself. So, how do you figure it out? Well, the bad news is that there's no simple way of comparing the different networks' offerings. The good news is that HTT has found 2 calculators to help you in this mission!
1) You know what you want in a phone and you want to find the phone that meets your requirements then click here: Find the Contract that's right for you
OR
2) You know your call or SMS or data usage habits and want to find the best contract that meets your usage then click here: Package comparison tool
OR
3) You have a few cell phones in mind and want to compare their features then click here: Find the phone that's right for you

Thanks to NashuaMobile for providing these useful calculators.

Tips: What's MNP? Mobile Number Portability; here's a easy to understand guide to MNP: Number Portability

Vodacom subscribers: Who is my Service provider?
Go here for a lookup tool: vodacom4me » specific needs » service provider contact details

MTN subscribers: Who is my Service provider? Go here for a lookup tool: MTN SP lookup