Red Bull MOBILE is expanding their product range by adding new data products to their range.

Red Bull MOBILE has introduced two new data offerings, and through their partnership with Cell C the company is able to give their customers a great all round internet experience.

The new Red Bull MOBILE data offerings operate through Cell C’s HSPA+ network ensuring that customers will always get an enhanced internet experience. The data offerings will be bundled with customised Red Bull MOBILE USB Data Stick and will also have a custom designed user interface manager with some Red Bull flavour to it.

The Red Bull MOBILE data offerings comes available in two varieties, one on a 24 month contract and the other on a once-off package.

The 24 month contract option will cost you R249 per month and will give you 3GB of data every month and a 21Mbps capable Red Bull MOBILE branded Huawei E367 USB Data Stick, out of bundle rates are 39c per MB

The once-off data option will give you access to 6GB total of data that you can use at your own discretion and a Huawei E367 USB Data Stick, this will cost you R1499 once-off.

In addition to the new Red Bull MOBILE data offerings, the company has also introduced new top-up contracts and added the LG Optimus Android smartphone to their RMB 200 package.

For more information about the new Red Bull MOBILE products visit www.redbullMOBILE.co.za

Cell C has announced that starting from today prepaid and Controll Chat customers will have the abillity to buy all-in-one vouchers that will provide them with better value for their money.

How it usually works for prepaid customers is you buy an airtime voucher that has a value of say R100 and then you can buy sms or data bundles that gets subtracted from your airtime, but with the new all-in-one vouchers from Cell C customers can now buy one vouchers that offers them airtime, data and sms bundles.

The new Cell C all-in-one vouchers are not only convenient but they offer customers better value for their money with data prices between 40c and 50c per megabyte and on network call rates of between 40c and 50c per minute.

Simon Camerer, Cell C’s Executive Head of Marketing said:  “We want our prepaid customers to experience ‘Woooooooshh’, we want them to see what the network can deliver, and we wanted to do this together with other benefits that our customers enjoy, and of course continuing to provide our customers with great savings.”

Currently there are three vouchers available to prepaid customers ranging from R49 to R199.

Cell C customers can obtain the all-in-one vouchers from 1 June 2011 at Cell C stores, for more information visit the Cell C website.

Cell C recently launched their “anti-red” campaign in response to Vodacom’s new Red campaign, warning users to “Stay out of the Red”, but the company is not stopping at text ads.

Cell C has now taken it’s “anti-red” campaign to television. The television commercial features Cell C’s customer experience officer, Trevor Noah, and pokes further fun at Vodacom’s new Red rebranding.

In the advertisement Noah walks around a blue car being resprayed to red and ask the question, “Recently a 17 year old cell network changed their colors.  Nice.  But what is actually under the hood.”

Noah then walks towards a new black Ferrari uttering the follow phrase: “The engine that drives Cell C is its leading and completely new HSPA+ 900 MHz network – voted best in the country.  Cause it takes more than a lick of paint to be SA’s number 1 network …”

Cell C is not the only company trying to gain exposure from Vodacom’s new Red re-branding campaign, ISP Afrihost, famous for setting the new standard for per GB prices has also launched a red campaign where they are offering customers 17GB of unshaped bandwidth for just over R200.

[UPDATE]
Cell C has now aired another television ad aimed at Vodacom’s Red campaign.

Vodacom recently unveiled their new branding with a big focus on Red, the new colour of Vodacom.

Vodacom is spending more than R200 million on the new Red branding but Vodacom CEO Pieter Uys said that the re-branding is not only a once of change from Blue to Red and in the coming months consumers can expect more from the new Vodacom.

Cell C is however not letting Vodacom take all the shine with its new Red Vodafone centric brand, the cellular operator who recently changed their own brand from Red to Black is targeting all Vodacom Red advertisements on Google through ads.

The new advertisement campaign handled by Trigger, the social media company handling all the Cell C social media account, takes aim at searches related to Vodacom and then warns users to “Stay out of the Red” with another advertisement reading “Red means Stop”.

To view the advertisements simply search for Vodacom Red or Vodacom Broadband on Google.

Cell C, who’s brand was previously also Red, clearly are trying to win over users through the Vodacom Red campaign, my concern is just can Cell C handle more users on their broadband network with so many users already complaining about connectivity issues.

Okay I must give recognition to Cell C for driving down mobile broadband prices, but if there is one thing that really pisses me off is when I pay for something and then I can’t use it.

Last night from between 19:00 and 20:00, users started complaining about connectivity issues. I was unaware of this until about 21:00 when I realised I have still about 700mb left for the month and decided to make use of the bandwidth I pay for and upload some photos.

I hooked up the Speedstick and connected but when I tried browse to a site it just timed out, I decided to disconnect and reconnect as I get the error quite often and this usually resolves it but alas it did not help, I eventually gave up at around 23:00.

Heading to Twitter from my iPad with MTN broadband, I saw numerous users that was not very happy with the Cell C network reporting the same issues, and eventually Cell C tweeted “South Africans are WOOSHING big time tonight! We apologize for any intermittent connectivity caused by extra load, but we are working on it!”. Clearly users are fed up with the promise of great speed but getting either slow or no connections whatsoever.

No my question to Cell C is what are you going to do about the fact that I, and all of the other Speedstick users could not use our cap before you reset it? I think it is just fair that you reimburse us for this seeing as we pay for something we could not make use of.

After reading some tweets and forum posts it seems like this is something that has happened before, an easy solution to this load issues is to just make the it roll over every month end. This was my first month with the Cell C Speedstick and I am really not impressed, during the month I also had speed issues where my connection was getting dialup speeds and I live almost next to a Cell C tower with full signal and HSPA signal.

So Lars I think it time for you to take some action and offer explanations and what you are going to do about the fact, and perhaps you must rethink your social media strategy also as you official twitter account spends more time tweeting tech articles that has absolutely nothing to do with Cell C rather than assisting customers. I sent out numerous tweets that mention @CellC and did not receive one response.

Last night at an event, Cell C CEO Lars Reichelt, officially unveiled the new Red Bull MOBILE offering.

The new partnership between Cell C and Red Bull will see customers get access to an array of features through the Red Bull MOBILE portal.

Red Bull MOBILE portal include access to the following:

1. Red Bull TV
2. Free Red Bull Downloads
3. Updates and news on Red Bull athletes
4. Local weather and news
5. Entertainment

Being a Red Bull MOBILE customer will be all about perks, Red Bull MOBILE customers will get exclusive first rights to tickets for various Red Bull events such as the Red Bull Racing at the Top Gear Live Festival this coming March. In addition to first rights to tickets, customers will also receive a monthly copy of the Red Bulletin, a global magazine that covers the very latest news from the world of Red Bull in an inimitably witty, intelligent and pithy style.

Red Bull MOBILE has launched with two packages and four phones to choose from, the phones which two of them are Red Bull branded will come standard with a number of application pre-loaded including Red Bull Music Academy Radio and Red Bull X-Fighters.

The two available packages include the RBM100 and the RBM200 which will go for R149 and R249 per month respectively.

Both Red Bull MOBILE branded phones are manufactured by Huawei.

Energy drink maker, Red Bull, is set to launch a mobile network in South Africa soon, but it won’t be a Virtual Mobile Network Operator like Virgin Mobile.

Red Bull already has a strong presence in South Africa with its Energy Drink and extreme sports events and now through a deal with Cell C, the energy drink giant will be offering their Red Bull MOBILE product to South Africans.

Red Bull MOBILE will not launch as a Virtual Mobile Network Operator, nor will they be building their very own network but instead through a venture with Cell C they will be offering Red Bull branded packages to customers.

According to Cell C CEO, Lars Reichelt, they will be running the show and that Red Bull MOBILE customers will be Cell C customers.

It is still unclear as to what packages will be available under the Red Bull MOBILE brand, but there are rumors that Red Bull MOBILE customers will get special access to Red Bull events in South Africa.

Cell C last night at the Silicon Cape event launched a new service called MyTools which provide Cell C subscribers similar functionality as that of Google Voice users.

Cell C MyTools provide users with an online dashboard where they can manage all aspects of their phone calls and voicemails like setting up call filters to block unwanted calls or sending calls from certain numbers straight to voicemail.

MyTools also allows you to customise your voicemail by allowing you to upload custom voicemail greetings and even enabling you to listen to your voicemails right from the site.

Future functionality include an online phonebook that will automatically sync your contacts over the air without the need to install any client application, this should be available in the next six to eight weeks.

The service is currently only available to the attendees of the Silicon Cape event and Cell C staff members, but Cell C subscribers wanting to be part of the trial can sign up at cellc.co.za/mytools.

Check out the video about Cell C MyTools

Earlier this year Cell C launched a new campaign where they introduced their new 4Gs network, brand and their new CEO or ‘Customer Experience Officer’. The campaign has seen great success with its quirky new CEO Trever Noah.

Nandos which are famous for their advertisement has however not let this one pass. Nandos introduced a brand new advertisement which is a parody of the Cell C ad, with their very own CEO ‘Chicken Excellence Officer‘, Kagiso Lediga.

The Nandos ad clearly takes a stab at Cell C’s 4Gs network when Kagiso talks about Nandos 5Gs, which stands for 5 great sauces. Also at the end of the ad Nandos makes fun of the Cell C logo dispute where it looks like a copyright sign.

Have a look at the new Nando ad.

The first set of Windows Phone 7 mobile phones are set to hit the South African market in early December 2010, but is this too little to late from Microsoft? With Android, iPhone and Blackberry smartphones currently dominating the smartphone market, is there room for another mobile OS? Microsoft seem to think so with the release of Windows Phone 7.

Microsoft is promising a fresh and new user experience with Windows Phone 7 guaranteed to shake up the marketplace, delivering a phone that integrates the things people really want to do and puts those things right in front of them.

Two Windows Phone 7 devices will be available to the public in early December 2010 on all major networks. The two Windows Phone 7 models are manufactured by HTC, now know more for their Android devices like the HTC Desire. The two initial models are the HTC 7 Mozart and HTC 7 Trophy, the latter being exclusive to Vodacom, they will be joined by models from Samsung and LG early in 2011.

According to Nkosi Kumalo, mobility business group lead in South Africa, users can expect to pay from R150 per month on contract for the Windows Phone 7 devices. MTN already have the HTC 7 Mozart on their price list starting at R 289.00 on MTN 100 including 75MB of free data.