MTN’s “Uncapped” Broadband: The 24 Hour Rush

Last month I started seeing these adverts on TV, advertising MTN’s new data option: pay R50 and get a whole day’s worth of broadband access.

In addition to this, there’s also a R25 option which gives you three hours of unlimited “uncapped” broadband. And there are also new pricing options when it comes to broadband, with 75 MB and 300 MB data bundle options now available. They’ve also done away with out of bundle rates, which meant if you didn't either buy a once off or subscription bundle, you paid a lot more out of your airtime.

But I think more than anything, it was this R50 uncapped access that got everybody talking, and it made me think about what I could get in 24 hours.

Now, my Nokia E90 isn’t top of the range – it puts out a connection at about 115 kbps, which at least trumps dial-up, for sure, and I’ve seen it go up to about 70 kbps while downloading. On a good day it can download 4 MB in one minute, compared to dial-up which would take about 20 or 30 minutes to do the same. Now take 4 MB and times that by 60 and you get 240 MB in an hour. Then times that by 24 [hours] and you get 5760 MB in a day.

I don’t know if this is at all correct. Like I said, it’s just in theory. I’ve read others’ calculations and they think you might be able to get 1 – 1.5 GB in 24 hours, and they have better broadband connections than mine, likely, with one guy saying he can get 150 MB in 6 minutes! That’s about 25 MB per minute, but this is at 4 mbps or something.

The only thing is that there’s a bit of a lie when it says “uncapped”, which you’ll notice I’ve put in inverted commas almost everywhere in this post. This is because you can download up to 150 MB with unlimited speed – as much as you can go. But after 150 MB, it is limited to 128 kbps. But this isn’t a problem for me, because like I said – my E90 doesn’t put out that much anyway.

But consider that MTN’s normal 1 GB data bundle is nearly R300, and the 2 GB one is nearly R400 - a 1-Day R50 option doesn’t sound too bad. In fact, it’s less than what you’d pay for a 100 MB data bundle: R80. And those data bundles also have to last 60 days now, or two months. Before it was just 30 days, but people complained.

I think what I have to do is try and prove the theory by downloading 1 MB and seeing how fast it downloads, do my calculations,  and after that, try out the R50 option and see how much I can get in 24 hours. I reckon I could download The Dark Mod in 24 hours, seeing as NAG won’t put it on the Cover DVD.

MTN’s “Uncapped” Broadband: The 24 Hour Rush

My Data’s Gone! Wait a Minute…no, it's Not.

Something odd happened to me the other day. A couple of months ago I bought airtime from MTN which I converted in to data to use online. That data has to last for 2 months (60 days). It used to be 30, until people complained a lot. They complained because they may have bought a large data bundle, only to find that they hadn’t spent some (or most) of it, and then at the end of the period that the data is valid for, it’s gone. Just like that.

This isn't the first time I've had trouble with MTN, by the way.

Anyhow, I still had a sizeable chunk of my data left, and I badly wanted to use it up before it expired. I got an e-mail a day or two before telling me that soon my data would expire. So, it was late, and after some blogging and such, I wanted to use the data I had left to download something. I won’t tell you what it was (it wasn’t what you think it is). I dialed the number on my cellphone to check my balance to see how much I had left, and I was shocked when it read 0 bytes data. I was kind of sad, frustrated, and angry all at once.

How dare they take my bloody data!

Anyway, I still had some airtime left, so I thought, I’ll use what’s left. So I started my download, and all the while I was seething because of what had transpired earlier. MTN had told me that my data would expire on the 1st of November, and it was after midnight when I tried to download this file. I was expecting the download to stop any time because I didn’t have much airtime- but it kept going. I was confused, as I checked my balance again and again. It wasn’t using the airtime, so what was it using? It still read 0 bytes data, while a day before it was above 50 MB. I figured that even though it said I had nothing left, there was still indeed data being used. Maybe it hadn’t been cleared, or it was a grace period or something.

I don’t know how much longer it would have lasted seeing as it said the 1st of November was the day, but I managed to get my download finished, and got what I wanted. That was such a close call. In the end all my airtime was used up too. So it was 0 R Airtime, 0 bytes data, 0 smss. It’s time to top up again, I think.

My Data’s Gone! Wait a Minute…no, it's Not.

I Think I Just Got Screwed by FNB and MTN…Again

I recently received a brochure that informed me of the possibility of recharging my airtime account with my online banking account as well as my cellphone.

So, last night I logged in and bought some airtime. I got a text telling me that the transaction was completed, and I received another text telling me that I had received free extra airtime- nice.

Then I find out that the extra airtime isn’t included in your total balance when wanting to download a data bundle. So I went on again and tried to download another voucher. I get another text and I check my balance only to find that the original amount that I paid for was gone, and the extra airtime was gone too. I go online again, but this time make sure to log out and then log back in again in case there are only so many purchases you can make with one OTP. I buy another voucher and get another text.

So, I try to buy a data bundle and the operator says, “Your data bundle purchase could not be processed at this time. Please try again later. Goodbye.”

So I spent all that money, and I’m left with all this airtime that I can’t even use to buy a data bundle.

Eventually, two hours down the line I was able to get a data bundle, but instead of getting 100 MB, I got 200 MB! Weird. I still don't know if I was overcharged.

I also noticed that data bundles are now valid for 60 days instead of 30 days. On one hand, that’s good because now you have more time to use the actual data, but on the other hand it’s not so good because now you have to wait twice as long before being able to buy a new one. You could probably just take the sim card out, replace it, and get more airtime to buy another one, but it’s too much effort.

FNB and MTN, you suck. Goodbye.

I Think I Just Got Screwed by FNB and MTN…Again