How to save Kshs 11,000 on calls

Why don’t we, those already with smartphones, use skype to make calls and send messages?  You could save up to 92% on mobile communications. We calculate as follows:

If you are on the majority network (I mean Safaricom):

  • One minute of a call costs you Kshs 4
  • One minute of VoIP, according to this article, will cost you 0.5MB
  • Call over VoIP will be charged two way, one minute will thus consumer 1MB total but I’m concerned with what will cost you as the person who made the call.
  • If you bought 1.5GB for a 1,000 bob, you paid 0.67 bob (67 cents) per MB.
  • So for one minute of call you will spend 0.33 bob (33 cents).
  • This means saving shs. 3.67 per minute on calls which is 92% of 4 bob.

In other words, if your standard talk time per call is 5 minutes and you make 20 calls a day, you normally spend Ksh. 400 per day which comes to about Kshs. 12,000 a month. If you used VoIP via skype instead, you could have used 1.5GB per month and ended up spending Kshs 1,000 and as you can see, that’s 12 times cheaper; savings you a whooping Kshs 11,000.

What can you do with the saved Kshs 11,000? Your guess is as good as mine?

So why don’t we use skype or Viber to make calls?

  • Is it because we don’t have reliable Internet? No we do, I always make International skype calls almost on a daily basis and my conversations are always very smooth.
  • Is it because the other party doesn’t have skype installed in his/her smartphone? No, they have skype or can have in less than a minute if asked to.

So what reasons do we have for not saving Kshs 11K every month? Ignorance? Maybe but now we are wiser, aren’t we?

Look at this other way, if you were to buy data worth Kshs. 11,500, you will be able to surf the whole month, watch videos, do your downloads, and talk as much as you want without having to calculate savings you would get from a postpaid plan. Currently you could be spending Kshs 12K on voice and another mmmmh let’s say 4K on data. Total 16K. So for 11.5K on both data and voice, you will save 5.5K and use Internet as if you were on unlimited. Shs. 11.5K will give 25GB. I’m above average user of Internet and I use only 8GB a month, that’s 4K a month.

You could be thinking, “these calculations apply to those defined as standard users, but I’m a low user of both voice and data”.

So let’s do another calculation assuming that you are like one of my close friends who subscribe to the 10MB data and buys bamba 10 daily mainly for text messages. So in total she spends Kshs 20 daily. This comes to Kshs. 600 a month.

If instead she bought data worth Kshs 100 (80MB) and used whatsapp or viber or skype to text; and maybe used Facebook now and then and tweeted a little, I bet she could be able to last with this data for close to a month. And if once in a while she used skype/viber to make that important call, then she could spend, to be generous, Kshs 300 a month on data.

At the end of the day, she still would have saved 50% of her monthly communication expenditure.

So, fellow Kenyans, why don’t we want to save kshs 11,000 or less? For now I know Internet is not stable all through but I think if we all demanded better data connectivity the telecos will be forced to better their services.

Thanks.

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