Mobile data prices will fall further

By: Adsl

Vodacom’s recent announcement that it will reduce its data rates by 20% was applauded by the broadband community, but this is not the last reduction in the pipeline.
 

Chris Ross, Vodacom’s Managing Executive for Products and Services, said that Vodacom will continue to push prices down. He pointed out that the costs associated with technology and broadband rollouts must be recovered, but as these cost are covered and as the user base grows data prices will continue to fall.

Ross also stated that the revenue generated from data will become increasingly important in future. While data only constituted 12% of Vodacom’s total Revenue in 2003, it will most likely grow to around 30% by 2008.

Vodacom is confident that it will be a major player in the broadband arena in future. It sees itself as a competitor to ADSL, and Ross pointed out that their service can be seen as superior to ADSL due to its mobility component. He pointed out that their service connects a person and not a place.

With the higher speeds and lower latencies of HSDPA Vodacom believes that it can effectively start to enter the triple-play and online gaming markets, services traditionally associated with fixed line broadband services. Ross said that users can expect increased HSDPA speeds of around 4 Mbps towards the end of this year, and up to 100 Mbps with the introduction of 4G services in the next few years.

Faster data rates require a higher density of sites, and here Vodacom is doing their best to accommodate users. They pointed out that they are rolling out additional sites as fast as possible, but that there are constraint like their reliance on Telkom for backhaul and environmental approval.