Telecommunications giant MTN found themselves in hot water in the early hours of Tuesday morning. This comes after a Twitter hashtag had tweeps raising their frustrations around excessive data prices through #NoRechargingForMTN.
The hashtag that was created on Twitter late last year by a user called @SciTheComedist, started making the rounds yet again.
“Guys I have an idea on how we can make @MTNza @Vodacom @TelkomZA and @CellC to really make sell us 1GB data for R5/R10,” says the tweet posted by @SciTheComedist.
Many tweeps started pleading with the network provider to reduce data prices. And some users even compared South African MTN data prices with the ones in Nigeria stating the huge difference between the two.
MTN users posted screenshots of data prices in Nigeria and South Africa with one user saying ‘MTN in SA charges R249 for 6GB while MTN in Nigeria charges N2 500 (R99.66) for the same 6GB of data.’
Late last year, the competition commissioner Tembinkosi Bonakele said Vodacom and MTN must reduce their data prices, with Bonakele arguing that this could be between 30% and 50%. Bonakele further said that South African’s were paying more for data than their African counterparts.
Both Vodacom and MTN did reduce their data prices after the competition commissioner stated that they do so. However, tweeps were still not happy about the outcome as one user tweeted:
“@MTNza used to sell 1GB fo R159 then even South Africa saw that they're bloody expensive. They took them to court & told them to reduce their prices. Now 1GB is R99 which is still ridiculous...Their 1GB is more expensive than 10kg Mealie Meal,” reads the tweet.
Tweeps also pleaded with YouTube influencers to also support the campaign by joining forces and taking the stand against excessive data prices.
@2021AFRICA tweeted: "Shouldn't YouTube influencers be taking a stand also against data prices? Or are they happy with the little to no views they get because people can't afford to watch their content?”
The #DataMustFall campaign saw the competition commission acting on behalf of all South Africans with the reduction of data costs. Now with the #NoRechargingForMTN campaign growing stronger every second hopefully the same will be done to support this movement.
IOL TECH