Following close behind First National Bank’s (FNB) iPad 2 promotion, the South African iStore has followed the cheap iPad trend and launched its Apple promotion offering the public affordable iPads along with data. The promotion aims to make an aspirational and desirable device more affordable for the general public. With data contracts provided by MTN, the store offers an iPad 2 with 2GB of data starting at just R379 per month.  Customers also have the option to upgrade the 2GB contract to MTN’s unlimited offering.

The pricing for the iPad 2 promotion includes:

• 16GB iPad 2 with Wi-Fi + 2GB data at R379 per month
• 32GB iPad 2 with Wi-Fi + 2GB data at R419 per month
• 64GB iPad 2 with Wi-Fi + 2GB data at R469 per month
• 16GB iPad 2 with Wi-Fi and 3G + 2GB data at R389 per month
• 32GB iPad 2 with Wi-Fi and 3G + 2GB data at R439 per month
• 64GB iPad 2 with Wi-Fi and 3G + 2GB data at R489 per month

Earlier this year FNB launched their iPad promotion as an innovative way to promote daily electronic banking through a number of channels including the FNB banking App and internet and mobile banking by providing customers with iPad tablets and HTC and BlackBerry smartphones at reduced rates and effectively lowering the price by 35%.

source: Mybroadband

New MXit CEO, Alan Knott-Craig just announced through his Twitter profile that MXit is currently testing out a new service that allows MXit users to purchase coffee at Vida e caffè with their mobile phones.

In just three easy steps, customers can make the purchase through MXit Moola, the instant messaging service’s virtual currency. Currently in its beta phase, the service is only available to customers in Stellenbosch but is expected to spread country wide.

View the video below to learn how to use the service:

One of the big irritations of travelling abroad is the high prices of international roaming costs. Nevermind calls, the data rates are simple daylight robbery. So in most cases smartphone or tablet users look around for wifi hotspots or hotel networks to get work done. Problem is that not all these networks are free, and more significantly, they are a hassle to use.

You know the drill – you have to buy prepaid credit at some counter, or enter your credit card details into some site you do not know, and do not trust. Luckily the Skype Access feature has been around for a while now, and has helped people get online using only their Skype credit. No need to deal with signing up at specific networks using their own way of doing it. Just logon using your Skype name and you are sorted.

Luckily Skype has now made it a little easier for us, and has re-released this product as Skype Wifi, and they also rolled out a iPhone and iPad app to help you quickly connect to one of their preferred Wifi networks. “Preferred” networks made me hessitate a bit – but the catalogue of supported networks are massive. While I am not a regular user of hotspots in SA, Skype Wifi already has deals with all the big names in SA like Skyrove, Wireless G, FON etc, but also other the ones like Nandos and AlwaysOn. If this is the case in SA, I think you should be well covered when abroad.

Costs are reasonable and a lot cheaper than using international roaming, but here are some figures. I also looked at other countries – the US for example:

• Best Western from just 19¢/min (22¢ incl. VAT)

• Camden from just 19¢/min (22¢ incl. VAT)

• Comfort from just 19¢/min (22¢ incl. VAT)

• DeepBlue from just 19¢/min (22¢ incl. VAT)

• DrangnFly from just 19¢/min (22¢ incl. VAT)

• Econolodge from just 19¢/min (22¢ incl. VAT)

• ESPN Zone from just 19¢/min (22¢ incl. VAT)

• Ethostream from just 19¢/min (22¢ incl. VAT)

• Everwave from just 19¢/min (22¢ incl. VAT)

• FON from just 14¢/min (16¢ incl. VAT)

• Spot On from just 19¢/min (22¢ incl. VAT)

• Swisscom from just 19¢/min (22¢ incl. VAT)

• Tengo from just 19¢/min (22¢ incl. VAT)

• Tomizone from just 5¢/min (6¢ incl. VAT)

• WebBeams from just 19¢/min (22¢ incl. VAT)

• WorldMark from just 19¢/min (22¢ incl. VAT)

• ZigZag Wireless from just 19¢/min (22¢ incl. VAT)

These prices are per minute, in dollar terms. They are not bound to megabytes, so if you are connected to fast line, you should be able to send those larger files without worrying too much about data costs. Compare this for example to Vodacom’s current data roaming cost in the US of R 128.00 per megabyte, which gets charged per 10 kilobytes. I still shudder when I think they can ask such an amount.

Find the press release below of Skype Wifi: (more…)

This just in. MTN is about to rollout their new high speed LTE network. This is great news in SA’s current very competitive broadband space – but LTE is a newer wireless internet standard which has not been rolled out at this scale in SA yet.

However the final speeds are still a big improvement over existing wireless broadband solutions, but the biggest improvement is in latency, with around 20ms times. Compare this to current high speed HSPA+ connections, which typically do not get faster than 60ms. This will of course be beneficial for people who like their online gaming, but also for things like VoIP.

These new fibre backed network clusters only have around 600 meters coverage per antenna, which means that a significant effort is required to roll out this service, and it will not be available everywhere at first (in other words, typically city areas).

But here is the full scoop:

Today MTN announced the launch of a Long Term Evolution (LTE) pilot in five clusters around Gauteng that will revolutionise the provisioning of broadband services in South Africa.

The LTE rollout and pilot test, which MTN is undertaking in partnership with Huawei and Ericsson, will see selected MTN customers with provisioned dongles reaping the benefits of navigating on an ultra-high speed network that boasts speeds of up to 70Mbps across over 100 sites (more…)

Gotta hand it to Cell C – they know how to do marketing right. Vodacom has recently switched to a red colouring, as you might have noticed. Now how does Cell C and Trevor Noah take a bit of that attention? Watch the video below:

“It takes more than a lick of paint to be number SA’s number one network, dont you think?”

One problem though – there is a lot of chatter going on on Twitter about the much reduced speed of Cell C’s network these days. Just take a look at @louisvdm and @sarietha ‘s tweets to see what I am talking about. There has clearly been some congestion issues, especially in Stellenbosch – clearly the students have all switched to Cell C for internet.

Clearly the Cell C sticks have been selling well, but maybe too well for Cell C to handle? The pricing is still the best on the market, with not one single mobile network trying to compete. A few months ago I posted my speeds using Cell C over a period of time, but my performance has always been very good.

So in a bid to get some real life speeds from more Cell C “whoosh” users, please contribute to BandwidthBlog’s Speedwave for Cell C users. Its pretty easy, connect to the internet with your Cell C stick, and then do a Speedtest using the following link:

http://www.speedtest.net/wave/6be03c3c76bb542c

At present the results look OK, but we do want a representative sample. So lets see how everyone’s Cell C network is performing? Are you a happy customer or are you becoming a bit annoyed as well? Let us know in the comments.

If you ever needed convincing that the future of the internet is mobile, you HAVE to look at this excellent video by the guys at MobileFuture. We are shifting very quickly towards a ubiquitous internet society…

Some mindblowing statistics: (dont just read these, do yourself a favour and watch the video)

• FIVE BILLION apps downloaded — up from 300 million in 2009

Whopping expansion of location-based services

• FIVE MILLION Foursquare users — up from 200,000 users in 2009

Surge in mobile social media platforms

• 347 PERCENT growth in Twitter mobile usage
• 200 MILLION mobile Facebook Users
• 100 MILLION YouTube videos played on mobile devices everyday

Ongoing explosion in data traffic

• 3,000 PERCENT growth in one carrier’s data traffic since 2008
• 3,339: average number of texts sent per month by US teens.

Unprecedented competition and choice

• 96 PERCENT of mobile users can choose from 3 or more providers
• 92 PERCENT of mobile users are satisfied with their provider
• 4 CENTS: average voice rate per minute in the US
• 77 MILLION: number of smartphones shipped in the fall of 2010.

My favourite part: “The Digital Camera died in 2010: Your Mobile Phone is looking very guilty…”

A few weeks ago we promised you that we would follow up our review of the Cell C Speedstick with some real world speed tests, and here you go. I ran these tests during different times, and also at a few different locations. Overall the speeds are very quick, but there is a definite spike in network speed at off peak hours, a few times my connection reached above 10Mbps, which is great considering SA still has a maximum of 10Mbps of ADSL lines…

In terms of reception I was pretty lucky – I used it in quite a few areas in the Cape Town / Bellville / Stellenbosch areas, and also to a trip to Pretoria, and not once did I have reception problems. I did however once get only EDGE reception in Durbanville (or D’Urbanvale to be precise), despite Cell C’s map indicating full HSPA reception where I was standing – maybe I should tell Trevor eh?

I also found that the reception can be very sensitive – for example at work I found that connecting the modem to a laptop above my table gave me full HSPA speed, whereas connecting to a desktop below my table gave only a WCDMA connection. Maybe your experience would be different. But to be honest – in 90% of my use I had full HSPA+ speeds.

At present I am sharing a PDF file with my Speedtest.net results so far, based on connections to Johannesburg and London. Information includes download and upload speeds, and ping times. I also check how long Youtube videos had to buffer before playing (using standard definition videos). You will also find my signal strength and location info.

• You can find my Cell C Speedstick speedtest results here (PDF).

Once again I will try to keep this updated over time…

Competition is a wonderful thing. Just last week I commented on the lack of competition in the market since 8ta announced their new call and data rates, and finally Vodacom has come out with their guns blazing. But their latest broadband “starter pack” is perhaps rather aimed at Cell C’s offering of either 2GB per 12 months for R1499 once off or the 5GB per 12 month for R2999 (which also gets a faster connection). Both of these include the modems needed.

Vodacom is aiming at the lower end of the market – users will pay only R400 once off, which includes a 3G modem and 100 meg per month for 12 months. While 100 meg might sound like much, this is ideal for very light users of the internet. Users can of course add bundles if the 100 meg runs out. This aimed at either people for whom computing is not a major concern, or people who already have wifi access at home and work, and need something for those times when you are on the road. What I am wondering about as well – does the 100MB included carry over if not used?

What puzzles me as well is that Vodacom can offer this great pricing, yet still asks R88 for 110 MB data bundles? Also – how about more options? 100MB is a bit light in my opinion, and I want to see how Vodacom can compete with Cell C, which is still the best offering for users who want to actually use their computers a bit more on the road.

Source: Mybroadband