{"id":185941,"date":"2017-07-18T11:03:04","date_gmt":"2017-07-18T09:03:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=185941"},"modified":"2017-07-18T13:33:30","modified_gmt":"2017-07-18T11:33:30","slug":"south-africa-has-the-some-of-the-highest-data-prices-in-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/185941\/south-africa-has-the-some-of-the-highest-data-prices-in-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa has the highest data prices among Africa’s biggest economies"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new research paper by Research ICT Africa shows that the price of data in South Africa has not changed over the past two years – and is the most expensive out of all leading African economies.<\/p>\n

South Africa’s mobile data prices have come under constant attack in recent months, with targeted social media campaigns like #DataMustFall drawing attention to the high prices local operators charge.<\/p>\n

The price of 1GB in South Africa from South Africa’s two largest mobile operators – MTN and Vodacom – have flatlined at around R150 since 2014.<\/p>\n

In 2016, MTN’s price per GB increased to R160, while Telkom has been the only operator to make any downward adjustment to its prices, now pricing at R99 per GB.<\/p>\n

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According to Research ICT Africa, even at a price point of R99, Telkom has not been able to exert price pressure on the two biggest players, who still dominate the market.<\/p>\n

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This shows that consumers are willing to pay a premium for coverage and speed – as both MTN and Vodacom have the widest and fastest networks.<\/p>\n

However, this cuts out almost half the South African population, who are too poor to get internet access.<\/p>\n

Looking at the RIA’s Africa Mobile Price (RAMP) Index, South Africa’s cheapest 1GB package (from Telkom) ranks as the 25th most expensive on the continent (out of 49 countries).<\/p>\n

Put into context of the top 6 biggest African markets, South Africa’s data prices are by far the most expensive – charging $7.60 per GB, compared to the second most expensive, Kenya, at $4.90 per GB.<\/p>\n

Egypt’s cheapest 1GB package is just $1.20 – the cheapest of the big six countries.<\/p>\n

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Read:\u00a0SA mobile subscribers in 2017: Vodacom vs MTN vs Cell C vs Telkom<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new research paper by Research ICT Africa shows that the price of data in South Africa has not changed over the past two years – and is the most expensive out of all leading African economies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":57623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[42,26,28,65,27],"class_list":["post-185941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-cell-c","tag-headline","tag-mtn","tag-telkom","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185941"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":186065,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185941\/revisions\/186065"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}