whythawk ratings: measuring effective development

Whythawk does not normally stoop to being a consumer-action journal; however, when the products in question are cell-phone contracts it may be of interest to understand how they stack up against each other.

Cell phone companies have a clear strategy as far as their contract tariffs are concerned: sew confusion as widely as is humanly possible. Ensure that it is impossible, even with a calculator, for all but a few to create a normative set of comparable figures between competing companies. Even Virgin Mobile, which promises simplicity, is anything but straightforward.

After a rather involved set of calculations - about which I shall not bore you - the following table reveals the best contract offerings (post-pay) of each of the cell phone companies in relation to each other. Certain assumptions are made: that the user makes a large number of calls for business purposes throughout the day; that 65% are made during peak periods; that (for Vodacom and MTN) 60% of calls are made to other networks, while (for Cell C and Virgin) 80% of calls are made to others. The prices below include "free" phones for all except Virgin. The phones themselves may vary between contracts but I wasn't going to analyse that. If you wish, you may assume that the phone is awful and that you may have to provide your own. All figures are estimates and are provided as is.

Note that, under all circumstances, MTN is the most expensive, while under most circumstances Cell C is cheapest. Cell C and Virgin don't offer 3G services and have weaker network coverage. More interestingly is that buying large-scale contracts offering vast numbers of minutes included does not actually benefit you. Feel free to dispute my figures and assumptions. As a disclaimer, you use these figures entirely at your own risk. See our terms of use.

Keywords : cell phone, mobile, contract, post-pay, MTN, Vodacom, Cell C, Virgin Mobile, tariff