Where’s my data?

"Data”has become so ubiquitous in South Africa that it’s arguably more coveted than dates. Unless of course one is topping up "data" to find, er, you know…

By data, we don’t mean information stored on your computer. Rather a service that allows you to access the internet via networks such as 3G, 4G, or LTE (Long Term Evolution).

Data is so precious that South African cellphone companies were recently accused by ICASA (the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa) of being extortionists. ICASA officials told parliament earlier this month that SA’s data fees were extremely high, unacceptable, and affordable to most South Africans.

In simple English, a cellphone company has what they call in-bundle and outof-bundle data charges. Your R30 can for example buy you a 100MB data bundle; while using your airtime to log on to the internet (call that the outof-bundle rate), will be about double.

The technical mumbojumbo aside, we should all worry about what Europeans and North Americans call the Nanny State - a phrase that speaks for itself.

This writer is convinced that consumers are infantilised by regulations that for example, unfairly force MTN or Vodacom to go easy on their customers, when all we need is more competition among service providers.

• Simbelievesthatifyouplay inCapitalism,youmustplayby

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