Free SMS 31050 to get Vodacom info: Current Balance Or Call Limit Is, Or How many Available Minutes You Have

{From Vodaworld: http://www.vodaworld.co.za/showarticle.asp?id=1810)
Or, do you prefer a dose of jokes and riddles every now and then? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, you will love Vodacom's Keyword SMS service.  Keyword SMS is an easy-to-use service that allows Vodacom Service Provider customers to send keywords via SMS in an abbreviated format, to request information relevant to their package.

How does it work?
SMS the "keyword" to 31050.  You’ll receive a reply SMS with the requested information. You don’t have to call in and speak to a Customer Care consultant - the answers to your questions are right at your fingertips.

Keywords available to Prepaid and Top Up subscribers:
SS for Service Summary
CS for Call Sponsor
RH for Recharge History
AB for Account Balance

Keywords available to all Vodacom subscribers:
OTA for Over the Air Settings
ES for E-mail Service Status
ACS for Adult-Content Status
2YW for Two Year Warranty
HELP for Help
MENU for Available Keywords

Keywords available to VSP Contract & Top Up subscribers:
AB for Available Balance
AB for Account Balance
ADD for Address
*AM for Available Minutes
*AS for Available Seconds
AT for Airtime Transfer
BD for Banking Details
CB for Current Balance
*CL for Call Limit
CS for Call Sponsor
LI for Last Invoice
LP for Last Payment
MM for Used Multi-Media
PI for Proposed Invoice
RD for Random Riddle
RJ for Random Joke
*SB for Available SMS Bundle
SP for Who is my SP?
SS for Service Summary
SUM for Summary
UG for Upgrade
VAS for Active VAS


*Not applicable to Top Up subscribers

Cape Town’s new tariffs and charges (rates and taxes and electricity)

{Extracted from CityNews April 2010} The proposed new tariffs and service charges are set out in the draft budget. Water and sanitation charges will increase in line with inflation. However, electricity tariffs have risen sharply due to the Eskom increases, and solid waste removal charges have also risen to pay for new landfill and transfer station infrastructure.

Water and sanitation charges will increase in line with inflation, and property rates increases are in some cases below inflation. However, electricity tariffs have increased sharply due to the City being obliged to pass on the tariff increases granted to Eskom by the National Energy Regulator. Solid waste removal charges have risen to pay for new landfill and waste transfer station infrastructure.

The proposed service charge increases, given in the tables are:
• The property rate has dropped to 0,531 cents in the rand
• An average increase of 10% for water and sanitation
• An increase of 18% for solid waste removal
• An increase of 38,5% for solid waste disposal
• An average increase of 24,6% for electricity, based on Eskom’s increase of 28,9% for this year
• The first R200 000 of your property’s value is rates-free.




Water and sanitation tariffs 
Please note that the City has increased the number of billing categories, or ‘steps’, for water and sanitation.
These new steps are better suited to the volumes people actually use.
The first ‘Step 1’ – the free basic allocation – remains unchanged, but bigger volumes have been allocated into smaller blocks. The tariffs proposed in the budget relate to the new steps shown alongside.

Solid waste tariffs
There is a new charge, for ‘clean’ builder’s rubble.














Electricity tariffs 

These remain in three broad categories:
‘Lifeline’ – which caters for poorer people and has no service charge,
‘Domestic Low’ – with no service charge, and
‘Domestic High’ – which does have a service charge.

Examples of actual costs in each of the categories are given in the tables alongside.

How the electricity tariffs work
The tables below show what customers can expect to pay for electricity at the proposed new tariffs, and the examples explain what portion of purchases is made up of the free allocation, at the subsidised rate and at the normal rate.

Examples at the LIFELINE energy rate
• Person A buys R240 (including VAT) worth of electricity once per month.  For each purchase, he will receive 366,3 kWh, made up of 50 kWh free, 100 kWh at the subsidised rate, and 216,3 kWh at the normal rate.
• Person B buys R60 (including VAT) once a week. For the first purchase in the month he will receive 50 kWh free, and 90,6 kWh at the subsidised rate – a total of 140,6 kWh. On his second purchase he will receive 9,4 kWh at the subsidised rate and 66.9 kWh at the normal rate – a total of 76,3 kWh.  For the third and fourth purchase of the month he will receive 74,7 kWh – all at the normal rate. If one adds all four purchases together, he also receives 366,3 kWh in the month, the same as Person A.
• Person C normally buys R200 (including VAT) once a month.  For this he will receive 316,5 kWh made up of 50 kWh free, 100 kWh at the subsidised rate, and 166,5 kWh at the normal rate. However, in this particular month, Person C requires a small top-up amount and buys R40 worth of electricity.  Person C will receive 60,4 kWh for this purchase – charged at the normal rate – bringing the total energy purchased in the month to R240 – 366,3 kWh in total.

Examples at the DOMESTIC LOW energy rate
This tariff is relatively simple. Whatever energy is purchased, the tariff remains the same and the value is a simple multiplication of tariff x units (kWh) purchased.

Examples at the DOMESTIC HIGH energy rate
• Person D buys 500 kWh of electricity four times a month. His normal account will contain two components: an energy charge to the amount of R455,85 and a service charge of around R52,50 for the week (seven days are used here – actual value will depend on the exact length of time between purchases).  Both of the purchases in the month (if equally spaced) will be identical.
• Person E buys 2 000 kWh of electricity on the first of the month, resulting in an energy charge of R1 823,40, and a service charge of either R225 (for a 30-day month) or R232,50 (for a 31-day month).
• Person F buys electricity once a year. He uses 24 000 kWh in the year, and will therefore pay R21 880,80 for energy for the year. He will also pay the service charge for 365 days, which will total R2 737,50 for the year.
Please note that the service fee is a daily fee and works out to be the same amount over a year, whether you buy once a week, once a month, or once a year.
 


• For more information, contact the City’s call centre on 0860 103 089.

HTT comments:
Prices will increase on 01Jul 2010.  Pre-Paid customers: see this article to see if it’s worth while to do a bulk buy purchase ahead of the increase: If you have a pre-payment meter: FAQs answered by Eskom on radio 567CapeTalk and Saving 24.8% by loading your pre-payment electricity meter
Did you notice the 93.5% in the daily service fee for Domestic High users?  From R3.88 to R7.50 per day! That’s from R116 per month to R225, or from R1,416 per annum to R2,736 (gulp).
BTW: you are a ‘Domestic High’ user if you use more than 800 kWh per month (average).  See here for more info: Cape Town Electricity Tariffs

What uses up the most electricity in your home or office? (calculator)

This is the question everyone has been asking and I too have been wondering.
I have created an “ElectricityUsageCalculator” (Excel spreadsheet) for you to calculate your usage and where you can make savings.

In fact, in the quest for the answer I have taken the long path of reducing my household’s electricity consumption and I thought that I’d share this information…

Before I get to the detail, I’d like to thank the following people/organisations/forums for sharing their valuable information:
Talk Radio 702 Power Guide: http://www.702.co.za/power/usage_list2.asp
Eskom’s Conserving Electricity page: http://www.eskom.co.za/live/content.php?Item_ID=274&Revision=en/0
Saving Electricity 101: http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/howmuch.html
Why not pay those sites a visit?

If you do want to save electricity/money try these steps (in the order listed):
*) turn down the temperature setting on your thermostat (mine is set to 40 degrees C) – you know when it’s set right by the amount of cold water that you need to mix when you’re having a shower…. If you’re mixing a lot of cold water, then you know that your thermostat is set too high – you need to turn it down (colder), until you are mixing no cold water (or little) in your shower.
See here: how to lower your geyser's thermostat
Heat loss will be small on modern (or geyser‑blanket clad) geysers and piping, but the lower the thermostat temperature, the lower the losses, and the lower the electricity that is used to get the water to the thermostat temperature.
Comment from Dave on http://energycrisis.co.za/?p=56: “I turned my geyser down from 60oC to 50oC and saved 20% on my bill”

*) use less hot water (ie. Install a low‑flow shower head [I have an RST low flow one], and shower quickly) to save electricity – the less cold water that your geyser needs to heat up, the less electricity is used.

*) use the ‘Electricity Usage Calculator’ to see where you ‘spend’ your electricity.

Download from here: ElectricityUsageCalculator02.xls

I was amazed to see that my main “culprit” was not my geyser, but in fact my swimming pool pump! [thanks Tim Truluck for pointing this out to me!]

Instructions for using the calculator:
Don't edit the shaded cells....

Step 1) In the worksheet ‘PerHourCosts’: check the ratings (W) listed [column D] and adjust to your appliances' ratings;

(Note which appliance is the most costly to run per hour)

Step 2) In the worksheet ‘UsageCosts’: fill in the 'hours used per item per month' [column D];

Note: 'Cost per item per month' - the high cost items is where you can save the most


  
 *) Use solar power to heat your geyser: install solar panels. If you are building a new house or if you replace your geyser, then install solar panels and a time switch.  A solar‑only geyser will heat up the water more slowly (note: the thermostat plays no role in limiting the solar‑only upper temperature).  Installing a time switch in a solar installation will: 1) ensure that electricity is not used on a sunny day (i.e. on a sunny day you would rather have a slower heating up of the water by the sun, rather than use electricity and solar to heat up the water faster); 2) ensure that electricity is used so as to guarantee that there is hot water early in the morning and, in late afternoon on cold/cloudy days.

How do I find out how much electricity something uses?

Adapted from “Saving Electricity 101”: http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/howmuch.html

Look at the label - nearly everything you can plug into the wall has a label that says how much electricity it uses.

If the label only gives the number of Amps and not the number of Watts, then just multiply the Amps by 220 to get the number of Watts. (Amps x Volts = Watts. So a hot plate that uses 3 amps uses 3 x 220 = 660 Watts.

Note that if a device is powered by a transformer (one of those great big plugs), then the transformer has converted the electricity from AC to DC, so you need to multiply by the DC voltage, not the AC voltage of 220. For example, if the device says "INPUT 9V, 0.5A", then that's 9 volts x 0.5 amps = 4.5 Watts.

Another tip:
*) Remember to turn off your ‘plug’ circuit breakers when you’re in “load-shedding” mode – this will ensure that your appliances are not connected to Eskom when power is turned on again – remember, when power is turned on again, there is usually a surge (over 220V) which could damage your appliances. Leave a light turned on, so that you know when power has returned, then turn your ‘plug’ circuit breaker back on again.

{Note: This HTT calculator is also available from the article “Does a time switch on your geyser actually save electricity?”}