Pattern Recognition
TOBY SHAPSHAK: #DataMustFall right now
If you want to get anyone’s attention in SA these days, start a movement with a hashtag that ends in "must fall". That’s what seems to have happened last week, after years of anger about overly expensive cellular data spilled over with the #DataMustFall campaign. There had been innumerable complaints and public outcries, but the tipping pointappears to have been an impromptu tweet by radio DJ Thabo Molefe, whose rants on Twitter seem to have spurred the lethargic process into something that might — just, almost, perhaps — look like progress.Tbo Touch, as he’s known, is scheduled to address the parliamentary portfolio committee on telecommunications & postal services this week about why data costs are so high.SA has a deeply iniquitous cost structure when it comes to data use. After a consumer finishes his or her data bundle, each additional megabyte is charged at R2. Add that up, and it becomes dangerously expensive. Many unwitting people have ended up with thousands of rands on the...
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