Boity Thulo is one of many South Africans calling out Vodacom over their exorbitant data rates.
The TV personality and muso named and shamed the network provider with several “receipts” of her recent purchases.
BOITY PUTS VODACOM ON BLAST
In a tweet that blew up on Sunday, 15 September, Boity Thulo slammed Vodacom over her recent purchases of data.
The rapper, actress, and businesswoman claimed that she had repeatedly purchased 12 gigs of data, which were depleted just a day later.
She tweeted: “Ke marete what you guys are doing! @Vodacom Ain’t no way!”
Others shared Boity’s frustrations.
@sharlottesekga2: “On my side, I’ve muted all statuses and turned off notifications for emails and all social media, including WhatsApp. There’s nothing I don’t do to reduce data charges, but still, my data runs out quickly.
@MrMothibeli: “I’ve had numerous fights with @Vodacom over data. Mind you, data is not like airtime, where you can see how much you use. So they take advantage of that and rip us off.
@Bomie_Mlata: “This has happened to me before. For two days, I’d top up, and without using my phone, no background apps were running! It would run out in an hour or two, Vodacom said they’d investigate, and nothing happened”.
Responding to Boity, Vodacom apologised and requested the celeb DM them so that they could “work to resolve it as efficiently as we can.”
WHY IS DATA SO EXPENSIVE?
According to the World Economic Forum, Sub-Saharan Africa has the world’s most expensive data prices.
This is due to challenges like poor infrastructure and the “control that telecommunication operators have over consumer rates.”
According to the Democratic Alliance political party, much of the blame lies with the requirement that any entity in the telecommunications sphere abide by BEE legislation, i.e., 30% equity ownership held by persons from historically disadvantaged groups.
This is one of the reasons that Starlink – a company owned by Elon Musk – has been unable to bring its high-speed and affordable internet into the country.