South Africa: Mango to introduce inflight Wi-Fi

update (01 Aug 2012): South African budget airline Mango is celebrating its final month of beta testing for its G-Connect In-Flight Wi-Fi service by making Facebook and Twitter access free and by  cutting the cost of access to the Internet on flights by 50%.

South African budget airline Mango has, together with Wireless G and Vodacom, launched the very first inflight Wi-Fi in the entire Southern hemisphere on 09 May 2012.
Passengers on Mango operated flights can now surf the internet using G-Connect, the Internet service provider Wireless G's in-flight WiFi, when travelling between South Africa's major centres. The service allows full on-board Internet connectivity, including web browsing, sending and receiving of e-mails as well as the use of all social networks. An air-to-land SMS service is also available, managed through a certain web service.  
G-Connect is compatible with most WiFi-enabled devices, including smartphones, tablets and laptops.

There are three different G-Connect In-Flight Wi-Fi packages on offer. One-Way Access is priced at R50 per single sector flight with a One Day pass available at R90, irrespective of the number of flights completed during a 20 hour period. A per-minute option, billed through G-Connect online account, offers land and air convergence at R1 per minute. All three packages offer unlimited data use during the allotted time.

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Vodacom launches low flat rates for Africa roaming

Good news for travellers in Southern and Eastern Africa. Vodacom South Africa recently announced that all customers, both contract and prepaid, can now expect huge roaming savings when travelling to 6 African countries where Vodacom and Vodafone operate. These countries include the DR Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique and Tanzania.
Once international roaming has been activated, you will automatically qualify for these rates. All Vodacom customers are now automatically charged at the reduced international roaming rates when roaming on the Vodacom Lesotho, Vodacom Mozambique, Vodacom Tanzania, Vodacom DR Congo networks, Vodafone Ghana and Kenya Safaricom networks. To ensure you are always roaming on the network, change the network settings from "automatic" to "manual" on your device when you arrive at your destination, and choose the qualifying network from the list.

Data (Data roaming is only available to Contract customers and charged in 10KB increments)   

• R5/MB

Voice (Voice calls are charged on a per minute basis)

• Free incoming calls
• Local Voice call - R2.90
• Call back to South Africa or an International call - R5.00

SMS   

• Local and international SMS messages - R1.50 per SMS
• Free incoming SMS messages