Tag: Communications

Looking After Your Contact Centre’s Rands and Sense

Posted on by Natalie van der Merwe

The Economic Benefits of a Locally Based Solution

Operational efficiency and customer satisfaction are critically important for contact centres. However, looking to global providers for the required cutting-edge technology generally comes with a globally sourced price tag, which can be costly in Rand terms. Add in the infamous volatility of the Rand and you’re looking at a financial headache, at best, and cost-cutting exercises at worst, just to stay with internationally based technology. The solution lies closer to home.

The primary purpose of a contact centre is to offer customers efficient and effective technical support, customer service and sales assistance. But at what cost does this happen – and can your business survive currency upheaval, which has a very real impact on the local economy across the spectrum?

The volatility of the Rand is a significant hazard for South African companies, because it’s seen as a proxy for emerging market investment. This makes the local currency highly exposed to external shocks and global events, and thus very unpredictable.

money rands 2951142 1920 | Vox | Looking After Your Contact Centre’s Rands and Sense

In turn, this has negative effects on potential investment and local business operations. It therefore makes sense to go with a locally sourced provider that operates cost-effectively yet still according to global standards of expertise.

This is where the partnership between Vox and Smartz Solutions is a game changer for the South African contact centre market. Both companies, with deep and proudly South African roots, bring together local expertise, innovation and a profound understanding of the market, to deliver exceptional products and services.

World-class Technology, Stable Costing

Many global providers price their solutions in US dollars or euros, exposing businesses to exchange rate fluctuations. A sudden depreciation of local currency can double or triple the cost of maintaining these platforms, wreaking havoc on budgets. As a case in point: the Rand has once again been volatile over the last year,[1] ranging from R19.23 against the US Dollar in April 2024 to R17.10 in September 2024.

For contact centres operating in dollar- or Euro-based terms, costs can quickly become very onerous – and yet the issue of a quality service offering is not negotiable.

In answer, Vox has partnered with Smartz Solutions to offer advanced, cloud-based contact centre solutions that are geared to deliver exceptional customer experiences and thereby support businesses.

In addition, Smartz Solutions provides a local offering that is innovative, cost-effective and tailored to meet regional needs while solving global problems. This means that Smartz Solutions is levelling the playing field by offering world-class technology at a fraction of the cost.

‘Smart’ Benefits for Local Contact Centres

business 4313966 1920 1 | Vox | Looking After Your Contact Centre’s Rands and Sense

Smartz Solutions offers world-class platforms that are priced and designed for local realities. It’s able to deliver the following economic and strategic advantages:

  • Cost efficiency without compromise: By pricing its solutions, professional services and support in Rands, Smartz Solutions ensures cost predictability by eliminating exchange rate risks. This assists organisations with their planning and allows them to allocate resources effectively, without sacrificing functionality or quality.
  • Faster support and customisation: Being locally based means quicker response times and lower costs for support and customisation. Smartz Solutions is quick and responsive, ensuring seamless operations.
  • Agility and Innovation: Free from the bureaucratic constraints of larger organisations, local companies can move quickly and innovate at a pace that global competitors often struggle to match.
  • Deep Understanding of Local Needs: Local companies often have an intimate understanding of the specific challenges and opportunities within their markets, enabling them to design bespoke solutions. They also understand cultural and contextual nuances, which allows them to foster stronger connections with their customers.

 

By choosing local providers like Vox in partnership with Smartz Solutions, businesses can navigate global challenges with confidence, ensuring they remain customer focused as well as competitive and agile. As an additional value-add, choosing to support local companies contributes to the growth of South Africa’s tech ecosystem – another win.

Smartz Solutions understands the importance of localised, cost-effective solutions and pricing. So why pay Dollars, Euros or Pounds for your contact centre technology, when your Rands will go further for the same quality and functionality? Local solutions are economically viable and also strategically advantageous for businesses that need to stay in contact with their customers.

With Vox and Smartz Solutions, you get continued customer service excellence that simultaneously helps you to look after your Rands and cents.

Which is only common sense, right?

[1] https://businesstech.co.za/news/finance/816948/how-much-the-rand-should-be-worth/

5-Star Experience vs 1-Star Google Review: Your Guests Want Great Wi-Fi

Posted on by Craig Blignaut

How the Travel Industry Needs to Get Connected

 

From the moment that plane commuters reach their destination, travellers around the world can immediately hear the surround-sound beeping noises as passengers, now safely arrived, turn on their phones to once again become fully connected. We find a similar story when travellers arrive at their guesthouse or hotel: according to a travel industry survey, one-third of guests ask for the Wi-Fi password as they register at the front desk, and two-thirds are online within seven minutes of checking in.

 

luggage 7653518 1920 | Vox | 5-Star Experience vs 1-Star Google Review: Your Guests Want Great Wi-Fi

It just proves once again that in today’s connected world, being able to access information and communication services is increasingly important. Just because someone is away from home doesn’t mean they don’t need to stay connected, even when on holiday (unless they’re making the deliberate choice to go off-line).

As for business travellers, a seamless Internet experience is necessary to communicate with clients and colleagues, access work documents and take part in meetings. Providing quick and efficient Wi-Fi services allows both leisure and business guests to enjoy their stay without undue stress.

Let’s look at how the Wi-Fi experience in a guesthouse or hotel can shape either a five-star guest experience or earn your establishment an unwanted one-star Google review.

 

Wi-Fi For Guests: A Fundamental Hospitality Amenity

People who travel want to update others on their safe whereabouts, and being unable to receive communication, or send outbound messages, can cause anxiety. By providing reliable, fast Wi-Fi services from the moment of registration, hotel guests can start to relax and enjoy their stay sooner.

Access to excellent Wi-Fi increasingly ranks as a necessity for today’s traveller when choosing a hotel – right up there with comfort, cleanliness, and excellent food and beverage offerings. With mobile devices, laptops and remote work now prevalent, complimentary access to Wi-Fi has become a key requirement for both business travellers and holiday makers.

A speed of 10 to 20Mbps per guest is recommended as being a decent Wi-Fi offering that should comfortably allow your guests to stream in full HD – you wouldn’t receive complaints if your customers had access to these speeds.

Excellent Wi-Fi adds to the guest experience, while the opposite also holds true: unhappiness with the Wi-Fi can make people more easily inclined to find fault in other, unrelated areas. From a purely commonsense perspective, this seems counter-intuitive, and a negation of the cost and effort that’s been spent on the marketing initiatives to entice the traveller to your establishment in the first place.

 

Factors to Consider for your Guests’ Wi-Fi

nature 2564502 1920 2 | Vox | 5-Star Experience vs 1-Star Google Review: Your Guests Want Great Wi-Fi

While most hotels and guesthouses today offer complimentary Wi-Fi service to guests, it might not be equivalent to what people are used to having in their own homes, which can cause frustration.

Considerations when choosing a guest Wi-Fi solution include the following:

  • Cost: The pricing structure will be based on the coverage area, usage and the number of users.
  • Technical support: Reliable customer support is critical.
  • Compliance requirements: The network must meet relevant data privacy and security regulations.

 

Elevating the Wi-Fi Experience

Vox provides managed Wi-Fi services for businesses. This enables remote software and firmware updates, as well as remote troubleshooting and fault remediation using cloud-based administrative tools. This all works to enhance ongoing connectivity.

Vox offers audits on existing Wi-Fi, because we know that not every business is looking for a new-build Wi-Fi, and we may be  able to upgrade existing assets or infrastructure. To provide a superior internet experience for guests, hotels and guesthouses should ensure that they:

  • Invest in high-speed Internet infrastructure (the foundation of your Wi-Fi experience) to support faster bandwidth and improve overall performance.
  • Implement a reliable Wi-Fi network that covers all areas of the premises, including common areas and guest rooms.
  • Optimise the Wi-Fi signal strength with strategic placement  of Wi-Fi access points or meshdevices, to ensure a strong and consistent connection throughout the premises.
  • Implement robust security measures such as strong encryption and password protocols.

 

With Vox, our aim is to enhance your guests’ Wi-Fi experience. We can provide a neatly pre-packaged Wi-Fi mesh unit solution to ensure that all areas of the guesthouse are serviced. These mesh units are also easily managed by a user-friendly app, which further enhances the functionality. If more advanced cabling solutions are required, perhaps for a larger premises, our technicians and engineers can set up the solution.

 

Happy Guests, Positive Business Outcomes

Noting that ‘The Customer is King’ is especially critical in the travel industry – guests want to feel valued as they step over the threshold, and excellent Wi-Fi is a key aspect of attracting quality guests and then retaining them for future return visits.

 

woman 1851464 1920 | Vox | 5-Star Experience vs 1-Star Google Review: Your Guests Want Great Wi-Fi

Investing in fast and dependable Wi-Fi access gives you a competitive edge in terms of increased guest satisfaction and corresponding loyalty. It’s also important to gather feedback from your guests to stay on top of any Internet connectivity issues that might have occurred, to keep your standards consistently high.

Another consideration is for South African hoteliers to aim their marketing at the local target market. The rise of domestic travel since the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic presents an alternative option in addition to targeting overseas guests. Arguably, domestic tourists might also be more easily able to plan a repeat visit if they’re content with their overall experience.

With everything that South Africa has to offer tourists, both local and international, wouldn’t it be a pity for guests to be unhappy with your Wi-Fi offering, when it’s a relatively simple amenity to offer – to excellent standards – thanks to experts like Vox?

Talk to us at Vox if you have any questions or concerns about setting up a great guesthouse Wi-Fi experience. We’d love to hear from you – contact us via help@voxtelecom.co.za or call 087 805 0530.

Treat your Customers Like Royalty with Vox and Smartz Solutions

Posted on by Natalie van der Merwe

A partnership designed to revolutionise customer engagement in SA

Poor customer service can have a serious impact on the overall health of your business. In the short term, it can affect sales, and over the longer term, it can lose your business some of its existing clients, as well as harming your reputation and your brand overall. When your employees don’t universally treat your customers like royalty, cracks in your brand loyalty will quickly begin to show.

There’s a little mantra right there: ‘Treat like royalty to ensure brand loyalty.’

For larger organisations, your contact centre is a critical part of offering excellent customer service, being a central point from which your company can manage all customer interactions across various channels. Its primary purpose is to offer customers efficient and effective technical support, customer service and sales assistance.

In this article, we look at how Vox has partnered with Smartz Solutions to offer advanced, cloud-based contact centre solutions that cater to the dynamic needs of the modern market.

 

From Call Centre to Contact Centre

You could think of a contact centre as being an upgrade of the original call centre, which traditionally relied on phone lines for both inbound and outbound calls. Today, contact centre technology – which encompasses the software and hardware used in contact centres for digital customer service and support – extends beyond phone systems, although the use of phone systems still has an important role to play.

 

Round | Vox | Treat your Customers Like Royalty with Vox and Smartz Solutions

 

The customer contact digital channels that are used by contact centre technology include email communications, text messages, web-based live chats, and social media interactions including WhatsApp and video chats.

Integration of the contact centre software with applications such as customer relationship management (CRM) software and workforce optimisation software (WFO) adds deeper understanding and analytics to the contact centre’s operations.

These integrated tools enhance efficiency, improve customer service and allow for better data analysis. With the increasing demand from customers for organisations to be consistently available on various channels, and not only over the phone, contact centres are embracing multichannel (or omnichannel) approaches to enable them to refine their customer service, increase efficiency and improve insights into customers’ behaviours and needs, in a holistic virtuous circle to create better customer experiences overall.

Adding to this virtuous circle is the importance of retaining top talent in your contact centre.  High attrition rates cost businesses, both in recruitment and training expenses, as well as the quality and consistency of their customer service. By empowering the agent with the right tools, organisations can build contact centres where agents thrive and want to work, which is essential for building long-term customer relationships and trust.

 

Vox and Smartz Solutions: Ensuring that the Customer is King

 

smileys 5776137 1920 resized | Vox | Treat your Customers Like Royalty with Vox and Smartz Solutions

Contact centre technology shapes a customer’s journey by supporting interactions across channels. It ensures that interactions reach agents, and facilitates seamless communication between customers and the brand, regardless of the channel used.

The partnership between Vox and Smartz Solutions – an omnichannel communications solutions specialist – is designed to offer advanced, cloud-based contact centre solutions in a collaboration aimed at enhancing customer engagement solutions across South Africa.

  • Terminology note: Omni-channel means an integrated customer service experience across all possible channels that a customer uses to engage with a business. These channels could include Voice, video, SMS, WhatsApp, e-mail, web chat and social media.

 

Smartz Solutions’s feature-rich, cloud-based contact centre technology is designed to reduce your total cost of ownership (TCO) and increase your return on investment (ROI), while improving both client and employee experience at the same time. Vox is able to tailor-make a Smartz Solutions offering for your business.

Smartz Solutions features and benefits include the following:

  • Completely local and Rand-based: Buying in Rands helps customers avoid unfavourable, fluctuating exchange rates, which can double or triple the costs of these platforms, wreaking havoc with budgets.
  • Omni-channel integration: Unified customer experience across all channels with seamless transitions.
  • AI-Powered analytics: Real-time insights into customer behaviour for data-driven decision-making.
  • Intelligent routing: Efficient call handling and prioritised issue resolution based on customer needs.
  • Predictive customer support: Anticipates customer needs for proactive problem resolution.
  • Scalability and flexibility: Easily adaptable to growing business demands, reducing total cost of ownership.

 

Redefining Customer Experience

 

customer 3864831 1920 | Vox | Treat your Customers Like Royalty with Vox and Smartz Solutions

Nobody likes having an issue with a company that’s providing a service, but then being unable to get hold of anyone to assist them. The days of being on hold indefinitely belong to the dark ages of customer service.

By maximising Smartz Solutions’ innovative platform, Vox is set to redefine customer experience for businesses of all sizes. The partnership aims to deliver exceptional experiences and support businesses in their growth and customer engagement strategies.

By choosing Vox as your Smartz Solutions provider, customers can benefit from Vox’s market-leading expertise and commitment to service excellence, combined with Smartz Solutions’ innovative and customer-centric communication platform.

How to Make the Most of Your Vox Connectivity Line

Posted on by Vivienne Fouche

Tips to make sure you’re getting what you signed up for

Picture the scene. It’s early afternoon and your small one is streaming HD videos in one room, your teenager is on a video call in their bedroom, and mom and dad are both working from home, simultaneously accessing the Internet via different laptops, in two other corners of the house. Best of all, thanks to your Fibre to the Home (FTTH) Internet connection, there’s no buffering or lagging in sight.

 

How to Make the Most of Your Vox Connectivity Line
How to make the most of your Vox connectivity line

Looking back, it’s quite surprising to think that even 15 years ago, this wasn’t a common scenario – for starters, YouTube was only started in 2005, and Netflix Streaming in January 2007. As for widespread Fibre connectivity in South Africa, it was still just a twinkle in somebody’s eye, because the first subsea Fibre cable to reach South Africa went live only in 2009. Today, Internet access has become one of the most important areas of our lives.

Internet connectivity opens us up to an incredible world of information, entertainment and opportunity, and nobody wants a slow or buffering connection, while price and value-conscious consumers are justifiably concerned about getting true value from their purchases. But what happens when you’ve paid for a decent Internet package, but it doesn’t seem to be working quite as well as you expected? When the Modern Family-inspired Internet scenario sketched out above starts stuttering and freezing?

Because even with a Fibre Internet connection – generally regarded as the crème de la crème of Internet connectivity – several factors can still reduce the performance of your Fibre to the Home (FTTH) Internet speed and reliability.

This article looks at how you can make the most of your Vox FTTH Connectivity line when certain challenges rear their heads.

 

Wi-Fi: Enabling Wireless Connectivity from Your Fibre Optic Line  

improve Wi Fi signal

 

Good Internet connectivity depends on many factors, including your Internet Service Provider (ISP) first and foremost, as well as the speed of your chosen Internet package; whether your devices are modern or no longer that new; and Wi-Fi options and challenges.

  • The job of a Wi-Fi router is to ‘convert’ the data packets carried within light pulses through Fibre Optic cables laid in your neighbourhood, into the Wi-Fi radio wave signal inside your home.
  • This then enables your family’s digital devices – laptops, tablets, smartphones and smart TVs – to link into the Internet, creating a wireless Internet connection for your home (cable-free Internet, in other words).

 

Wi-Fi functionality is integral to the performance of your Fibre-based Internet line.

 

Improving Your Wireless Signal

 If your internet connectivity line doesn’t seem to be giving you the results you were expecting, or if you’re experiencing Wi-Fi dead zones in your home (caused by the distance of your device from the wireless router, thick walls or electrical interference), there are a few things you can do to improve your Wi-Fi network, as follows:

  • Router position: Choose a central location in your home, and raise the router off the floor. Also, don’t place the Wi-Fi router inside a cupboard or desk. Sometimes just raising the router a little higher up from the floor for better signal distribution will increase its range and speed. Make sure your router is away from other electronic and electrical equipment, metal objects and solid brick or concrete walls.
  • Router speed: Your router should handle a speed rated the same or higher than your chosen Internet package. And so, if your Fibre Internet is 500Mbps, your router should be able to offer speeds at least this fast.
  • Number of devices: All Wi-Fi equipment supplied by Vox is strong enough to cover an estimated 100 square metres, depending on what material your walls are made of. Vox recommends adding an additional device for every 50 to 100 square metres extra.
  • Mesh System to enhance signal: If the Wi-Fi range in your house is poor, a Vox mesh router system can help to push the signal further, so the whole family can stay connected throughout the house, providing an uninterrupted lag-free high-speed Wi-Fi connection for multiple devices in every corner of your home.Vox Wi Fi Home Mesh
  • How many mesh units can I have in my home? The Vox two-pack can connect up to 100 devices and you can include up to eight units in your home if more coverage is needed. A Vox Wi-Fi Home Mesh network can handle a mix of IoT products, smart TVs, smartphones, tablets and other electronic devices, such as wireless printers.
  • Other devices can interfere with your Wi-Fi connection, including microwave ovens, cordless phones, Bluetooth products, baby monitors, alarms, cameras and other wireless LANs. To prevent this, position the Wi-Fi router or mesh extender as far away as possible from microwave ovens, Bluetooth devices, and 2.4 GHz cordless phones.
  • App-Enabled: If you want to check your Wi-Fi range, there are apps available for Apple and Android smartphones, for example ‘Sweetspot’ for Apple and ‘WiFi analyzer’ for Android.

 

Not Just the Wi-Fi to Consider

A Wi-Fi router is not the only critical component that enhances your user experience.

  • Wired after all: As outlined above, a Wi-Fi Home Mesh network can provide incredibly strong Internet connectivity, but there are still times when an Ethernet cable might be the best solution – for example, if you have very thick walls, or for plugging into an HD television or gaming setup, where the speed needs to stay high and the connectivity lag-free. Look at buying an Ethernet cable that is rated for ‘Cat 5e’ or ‘Cat 6’.
  • Great Internet, old device = problem: You won’t get the maximum range and performance from a newer wireless router unless your devices also use the same Wi-Fi standard. An old laptop is unlikely to have ‘ac’ or ‘n’ Wi-Fi access, so check the specifications to see which wireless standard it is using. If you don’t want to buy a new laptop straight away, you can buy a wireless adapter that plugs into a USB port on your laptop.

 

The Magic of Blazing Fast Internet

 

Vox Wi Fi Home Mesh

When you signed up for your FTTH Internet connection, you chose an option for yourself and your family that is fast, reliable and future-proof, and ready to deliver you the best possible Internet experience. Considering its scope and importance, maximising your internet connectivity line is critically important.

The good news is that you can optimise your home Wi-Fi experience with the right choice of routers, extenders and mesh options.

Your Vox Home Fibre line is future‑proof and capable of delivering outstanding home Internet, but a few simple tweaks to router placement, device choices and using mesh or Ethernet where needed will ensure the whole family gets the experience you expected.

If you need help optimising your home Wi‑Fi or want to add Vox Wi‑Fi Home Mesh, simply visit vox.co.za, sign up with Vox, or contact Vox Support on 087 805 0530.

With Vox Fibre to the Home, you are enabled by great Internet access. Welcome to a world of online opportunities.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

How can I tell if the issue is my Vox Fibre line or my home Wi‑Fi?

Run a speed test directly from a device connected by Ethernet to your router. If wired speeds match your plan, the issue is likely Wi‑Fi or device related.

How many Vox mesh units do I need?

A Vox two‑pack covers many typical homes and supports up to 100 devices. You can add up to eight units for larger homes or difficult layouts.

Where should I place my router for best coverage?

Position the router centrally, elevated and away from thick walls, metal objects and kitchen appliances. Avoid cupboards or behind large furniture.

Will a mesh system reduce my Internet speed?

A well-configured mesh keeps speeds high across the home. For best performance, place mesh units strategically and use wired backhaul where possible.

Do I need a new router if I upgrade my Vox Fibre package?

Your router should support the speed of your new package. If it’s rated lower than your plan, consider upgrading to a higher‑spec router or Vox Wi‑Fi Home Mesh.

Can old devices cause slow Wi‑Fi for the whole house?

Older devices can occupy airtime and reduce performance for others. Where possible, update device Wi‑Fi adapters or move bandwidth‑heavy tasks to wired connections.

Is Ethernet worth the hassle for a smart TV or console?

Yes. Ethernet (Cat 5e/Cat 6) offers the most reliable, low‑latency connection and is ideal for HD streaming and competitive gaming.

How do I contact Vox Support for help?

Visit vox.co.za for product info and self-service tools, or call Consumer Support on 087 805 0530 for assistance.

Too Big, Too Small or Just Right? Choosing the Right Internet Plan for Your Household

Posted on by Vivienne Fouche

Getting the right fit for your household’s size, usage habits and budget

There’s an age-old fairytale for children called ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’. If you think about it from a South African perspective, it’s really a tale of a home invasion – a minor and harmless one at least. One takeaway from the folk tale (besides ‘Don’t enter people’s homes when they aren’t there!’) is apparently that Goldilocks is looking for her fit in life.

Vox guide to choosing the right speed, data and connection type for your household that’s just right for everyone.
Image courtesy www.kids-pages.com

 

Here at Vox, we obviously don’t condone home invasions of any sort, but we do endorse finding the right fit. As one of South Africa’s leading Internet Service Providers (ISPs), we understand that your online experience should allow everyone in your home to enjoy seamless connectivity for all their devices and activities. We also know that choosing the right Internet plan for your household doesn’t have to be an impossible fairytale either.  

At Vox, we’ve got multiple Connectivity plans for you to choose from, but it’s important to understand some key points to make an informed decision.

So here’s a guide on selecting the best Vox Internet plan based on the size of your household, the usage habits of everyone who lives there, and your budget – because just like Goldilocks (but not in a creepy way) we understand the importance of getting it ‘just right’.

 

Assess Your Household’s Internet Usage

home internet for family 

Start by assessing your household’s Internet usage patterns. How many Internet users do you have at home and what do they do online? For example, do your family members regularly spend time streaming entertainment, gaming or in online video meetings? How many devices could potentially be connected simultaneously at any given moment? Thinking about these factors will help you to determine the required speed and data allowances of your Internet plan.

Internet speed is typically measured in megabits per second (Mbps) for downloads and uploads. So: how many teenagers – or almost teenagers – are living in your house, and are any of them currently planning a career in gaming or becoming a YouTuber? You’ll want to choose higher speeds if anyone in your home is regularly involved in bandwidth-intensive activities like online gaming or HD streaming.

The table below offers some useful guidelines.

V104.1.7 How to Choose Table V1 030225 FINAL | Vox | Too Big, Too Small or Just Right? Choosing the Right Internet Plan for Your Household
choose internet plan South Africa

Select Your Internet Plan for Seamless Connectivity

When you’re choosing a household Internet plan, you want one that offers sufficient speed to support your family’s online activities without experiencing slowdowns or buffering.

Compare pricing structures among our different Internet offerings to find a plan that fits your budget and your speed requirements, as well as whether your Internet data usage will be capped or uncapped. At any given moment, you’ll find a promotional offer available and a variety of options across all our different Connectivity options (which are outlined in the next section).

Evaluate your household’s typical data consumption and choose a plan with sufficient data allowances to avoid throttling of your Internet speeds. Throttling occurs if you use more than a certain, pre-determined (as outlined within your contract) ‘fair’ amount of data in a given timeframe.

If your Internet usage is ‘throttled’, your line speed is slowed down during peak times to give other users fair access to the network. In simple terms, being throttled means that your upload and download speeds will be significantly reduced at certain times, until the new month begins and the ‘reset button’ takes you back to your contractual speeds. If you find that your home’s Internet connection is being regularly throttled, perhaps you need to upgrade to a package with higher speeds.

 

Types of Internet Connections 

You can find out what types of Vox Internet connections are availably simply by going to the Vox home page and typing in your address. All the options available to you in your area will then be shown.

These could include the following: Fibre to the Home, which provides blazing-fast Connectivity by using light pulses to transmit data packets through Fibre Optic cables; LTE and 5G, which work via the same wireless cellular technology that powers your mobile phone network; and Satellite, presenting your eye in the sky when other options aren’t available.

Each type of Internet connectivity for home usage has unique characteristics:

  • Fibre to the Home: Enjoy super-fast, reliable Internet with Vox’s Fibre to the Home packages, with speeds that range from 4Mbps to a whopping 1Gbps.
  • LTE and 5G: Get connected to the Fibre-like speeds of Vox’s LTE and 5G offerings without having to wait for a fixed-line Fibre option to be installed in your neighbourhood.
  • Satellite: When your area’s access to FTTH, LTE and 5G connectivity is limited, Vox offers Satellite Internet, independent of cabling, across the country. It isn’t as fast as the other options, but it’s reliable and available across South Africa.

 

Choose the Right Internet Plan Today 

internet speed for streaming and gaming

Selecting the right Internet plan makes sure that everyone in your home can stay connected and productive, for communication, remote work and online learning, banking, shopping and entertainment.

At Vox, we know that, just like the Three Bears in the age-old fairytale, everyone’s needs are different. Why not contact us today for expert advice on how to choose the right Internet plan for your home and your family? We’ll help you make the right choice: not too big, not too small, but just right.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

Is fibre always better than 5G or satellite?
Fibre typically offers the most reliable speeds and lowest latency. 5G/LTE can deliver fibre-like speeds and fast installation in many areas. Satellite is best where terrestrial services aren’t available.

What does ‘uncapped’ mean and is it worth it?
Uncapped means you don’t have a fixed data limit for normal use; check for any fair-usage policy. Uncapped plans are valuable for heavy households whose members frequently stream, game or work from home.

Why does my internet speed slow down at certain times?
That’s usually due to throttling under a fair-use arrangement or network contention during peak hours. Upgrading to a higher-tier or uncapped plan can help.

Can I mix connections (fibre with LTE backup)?
Yes. Vox and many ISPs offer redundant setups (fibre primary with LTE failover), which is useful for critical remote work or businesses operating from home.

How many Mbps do I need for remote work and video conferencing?
For reliable video calls, aim for at least 10–25Mbps per active remote worker, with good upload speeds to avoid degraded video quality.

How do I check which Vox options are available at my address?
Use the Vox availability checker on vox.co.za and enter your address to view Fibre, LTE/5G and Satellite options and the recommended plans for your area.

 

How Premium Hosting is the ‘Blue Tick’ your Business Needs

Posted on by Vivienne Fouche

Join the club and enjoy the benefits

 

The issue of how to become part of an elite, exclusive grouping that others urgently want to belong to has been around for centuries and more. An invitation to ‘join the club’ usually speaks to people’s pre-programmed desires to be part of the In-Crowd and enjoy positive outcomes in one way or another.

 

band 8330128 1920 | Vox | How Premium Hosting is the ‘Blue Tick’ your Business Needs

In the UK and across Europe, we have royalty and rock stars. In America, there’s the huge celebrity that comes with being part of the crème de la crème of Hollywood. (Oh yes, and these days, if you’re a Tech Billionaire you automatically snagged an invitation to the 2025 Presidential Inauguration.) In South Africa, we had our own even-bigger-than-royalty home-grown celebrity with our late, truly great President Mandela, and we admire and revere our sports heroes (preferably when they’re winning, of course).

On social media we have the Blue Tick badge – a verification sign to show that the site is authentic. And when it comes to web hosting, here at Vox we know that Premium Hosting with WordPress is the Blue Tick that your business needs.

(Not to be confused with WhatsApp blue-ticking, which means you’re being ignored or even ghosted.)

So let’s look at why Premium Hosting from WordPress gives you and your target market peace of mind that you’re dealing with the real deal – and why you would want your business to join this club.

 

Your Web Hosting: The Real Deal

Meta Verified | Vox | How Premium Hosting is the ‘Blue Tick’ your Business Needs

A social media Blue Tick is a recognised stamp of approval that provides ways to separate an account from a duplicate or spam account. The advantages of this badge – which is different for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn – include greater credibility and a reduced fear of impersonation, higher search results, potential increased engagement and increased brand awareness.

Now if only there was a way to apply all those benefits to your website.

Enter WordPress and Premium Hosting.

WordPress is a Content Management System (CMS) that’s used to manage blogs, full-blown websites, online e-commerce stores, news portals and other types of websites. Its mission is to enable the creation and editing of content on a website without needing to be fluent in a programming language. WordPress makes it easy for content producers without any previous coding knowledge to design and manage their entire portal, store or blog, simply and intuitively.

WordPress Premium Hosting goes further by offering a reliable, locally hosted WordPress website without the administrative challenges of managing a server. Your company gains the benefits of a professional site that is secure and able to grow with your business.

But why should you choose WordPress Premium Hosting over some of the other options that are available? And how does Vox assist?

 

No More Singing the Blues of Shared Web Hosting

With e-commerce enabled functionality, your website is a place of business in its own right. It’s often the first experience customers have of your organisation.

  • Traditionally, shared web hosting means that more than one website shares the resources of a single virtual or physical server. This makes for a low-cost solution but means that service levels can’t be guaranteed.
  • Unlike shared web hosting, Vox’s Premium WordPress offering is a solution for customers who require better performance, uptime and scalability.

Vox Premium WordPress hosting offers the following:

  • Dedicated hosting infrastructure – no more shared web hosting.
  • High-speed storage, ensuring premium performance.
  • Built on the Vox Internet network, meaning guaranteed performance with the ability to upgrade when required.
  • Monthly Website Vulnerability Assessments to identify risks and be proactive with your website’s cybersecurity.
  • Ongoing backups to ensure you don’t lose your website.
  • Locally hosted servers with 99.9% uptime guarantee.

 

Taking Your Business to the Next Level

businessman 2682712 1920 geralt Pixabay | Vox | How Premium Hosting is the ‘Blue Tick’ your Business Needs

WordPress hosting is tweaked for high traffic websites, providing excellent performance and faster loading websites. Vox’s Premium WordPress offering delivers performance and scalability to your fingertips, with three different package options depending on your needs:  WordPress Starter; WordPress Innovator and WordPress Fanatic.

With all of these benefits, be prepared to turbo-charge your website – and your business – and enjoy greater credibility, rock-solid e-commerce performance, increased engagement and positive brand awareness. Welcome to the Premier Club.

Vox Hosting with the Mosting

Posted on by Vivienne Fouche

Providing a solution to meet your business requirements

Customer loyalty today demands digital options. If your business doesn’t have an attractive and well-functioning website, your potential customers will shop elsewhere.

South Africa’s online retail sector showed a significant increase in the past few years, growing by almost 30 percent (29 percent) between 2022 and 2023. Having reached the R71 billion mark in 2023, online sales are now anticipated to break the R100 billion barrier by 2026 – which is just around the corner.

And so, with South Africa’s online sales soaring, there’s never been a better time to make sure your business has a functioning website. Even with a bricks-and-mortar operation, it’s essential to back it up with an online option as well.

If you’re keen to upgrade your company’s online presence quickly and effectively – or even kickstart one if you haven’t got a website already – Vox offers several different hosting experiences with solutions to meet your business’s unique requirements, no matter your budget.

 

Domain and Web Hosting: The Right Address and Functioning Operations

street 767772 1920 edited | Vox | Vox Hosting with the Mosting

In the physical world, you need an address so your customers can find you, and you need premises from which to operate. These two terms represent different things in terms of getting your website infrastructure up and running.

  • Start with an address: Domain hosting is a service that allows you to choose and register a unique online name for your website and brand, in other words your web address.
  • Make sure your premises are fit for purpose: Behind the address lies the property from which your business operates. Web hosting is essentially what stores all your site’s information and files. It’s usually a server, or space on a server.
  • Let your customers come inside: When someone uses your domain to access your website, signals are sent to the server, which then opens up your live site for the customer – the online version of ‘going into your shop’.

 

With Vox Web Hosting, you rent space on our server and host your website contents through us. We offer multiple platforms to choose from, including WordPress, Linux and Windows. Vox Web Hosting includes a free .co.za domain.

 

Backed by Vox Expertise

difference 7370145 1920 | Vox | Vox Hosting with the Mosting

As well as being able to choose from multiple platforms and have a free domain, Vox Web Hosting also offers the following benefits:

  • Extensive network coverage: Vox Web Hosting has an established national and international backbone with over 13 local PoPs (Point of Purchase outlets) and footprints in all the Teraco Data Centre environments.
  • Security Team: All servers sit behind Vox’s state-of-the-art firewall infrastructure, with virus management and security updates.
  • 24/7 Expert Support: Our servers are locally hosted and managed around the clock by our engineering team for peace of mind.
  • Includes a Free SSL Certificate: If you’re going to run a prosperous website that is secure for your users and browsers, SSL certificates are an essential. Vox SSL Certificates keep your customers’ confidence by ensuring the safety of their data while they visit your website.

 

WordPress, Linux and Windows are some of the world’s most popular website hosting platforms today, and Vox Web Hosting is proud to bring you different options across each brand.

 

Shared Web Hosting: Linux and Windows

Shared hosting makes getting started online simpler and easier, saving you money, as well as taking the headache out of hosting.

With Vox shared Web Hosting, our customers experience a form of web hosting in which more than one website shares the resources of a single virtual or physical server, which means a stable but also low-cost solution.

Choose from Linux options as follows:

  • Linux Basic: 1GB of storage, 25 email addresses;
  • Linux Standard: 4GB of storage, 75 email addresses;
  • Linux Advanced: 20 GB of storage, 200 email addresses; and
  • Linux Ultimate: 30 GB of storage, 250 email addresses.

Alternatively, Vox Web Hosting also offers Windows options, as follows:

  • Windows Standard: 2GB of storage, 100 email addresses;
  • Windows Advanced: 4GB of storage, 200 email addresses; and
  • Windows Ultimate: 20GB of storage, 250 email addresses.

 

Premium WordPress Hosting

If you want to kick your website functionality up a notch, consider WordPress. Over the last two decades, WordPress has grown from being a simple blogging website to one of the world’s most used hosting platforms today.

Our premium WordPress offering delivers performance and scalability to your fingertips. It’s an excellent solution for customers who require better performance, uptime and scalability – although please note: it doesn’t come with email addresses built into the offering.

  • WordPress Starter is ideal for startups that require a professional WordPress website, offering 50GB storage and able to cater to up to 30,000 visitors monthly.
  • WordPress Innovator is perfect for growing businesses that need to scale and require speed and reliability, with 100 GB storage and ideal for up to 120,000 monthly visitors.
  • WordPress Fanatic is excellent for running an e-commerce website, with 150GB storage. It’s capable of catering to an unlimited number of visitors monthly.

 

Which Option to Choose?

Whether your business is already established or a startup about to take off, you need a strong online presence. From your website address to the online ‘premises’ behind it, Vox has the right option to help you with your online sales.

open sign 1309682 1920 | Vox | Vox Hosting with the Mosting

Shared hosting shares a single physical server with hundreds (if not thousands) of other websites, giving you a low-cost service. WordPress hosting is tweaked for high traffic websites, providing excellent performance and faster loading websites.

Contact us for more information and we can assist you with working out the option that’s best for your business. We can help you establish a business identity, give your organisation a professional look and feel, and build credibility on the web.

Join the sales revolution and be part of the drive to reach the one billion Rand online sales mark next year!

Vox MTN LTE-A Promotion: Double the FUP, Double the Fun This Festive Season

Posted on by Chris Boshoff

With Vox and MTN LTE Uncapped Packages

 

In the spirit of giving back, Vox and MTN are running a fantastic Vox MTN LTE-A promotion to give you double the FUP, and more than double the fun.

“Double the what?” – yes, it’s a fair question.

In short, our promo gives you double the allocated data bundle, free of charge, till the end of January 2025.

Let’s see what you and your family can do with double the FUP when you sign up for a Vox MTN LTE Uncapped package.

But first – what does FUP actually mean?

To ensure fair use on the MTN network (and ISP networks in general), your maximum download and upload speeds will be adjusted if you consume more data in the specific month than the Fair Usage Policy, or FUP limit, of your selected plan.

This is called ‘speed throttling’ and it plays an important part of the FUP rules for your selected plan. If your Internet usage speed is throttled, you will still have use of the service at the adjusted rate until the next month, when your normal maximum speed is restored.

Let’s unpack it.

Sharing is Caring

This is how speed throttling works.

architecture 1837176 1920 | Vox | Vox MTN LTE-A Promotion: Double the FUP, Double the Fun This Festive Season

Imagine a multi-lane highway of holidaymakers all heading down to the coast. Everyone is keeping nicely to the rules of the road and sharing the infrastructure, except for a small group of road hogs swerving in and out of the lanes and taking up most of the road, trying to get there faster and inconveniencing everyone else in the process. Just because, you know, they’re ‘special’.

Because of their assumption that they own the road, everyone else is forced to repeatedly hit the brakes. And then, tada! – the Highway Police arrive and put a stop to their high jinks. While the road hogs are pulled over and put in their place, everyone else is able to continue travelling again at a decent speed, as per how the highway was designed to be used by all.

Well, FUP is all about making sure the Internet ‘highway’ is used fairly by everyone in a way that the designated infrastructure allows – and speed throttling plays an important part in doing this.

What’s FUP, Guys?

As outlined above, Fair Usage Policy (FUP) is a set of guidelines imposed by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to ensure fair and equal access to the Internet for all users. It’s designed to prevent network abuse and congestion by placing limits on the data usage of individual subscribers, especially at peak usage times.

If you use more than a certain, predetermined ‘fair’ amount of data in a given timeframe, your line speed could be slowed down during peak times to give other users fair access to the network.

In essence, FUP is designed to prevent a few users from hogging the available bandwidth, thereby causing shared services to become unavailable for others. And so, if you’ve ever found that your broadband speed has suddenly slowed down significantly, you might have just been FUPPED. You were one of the roadhogs!

Or, to put it in terms that might appear in your contract: “When you reach your FUP, your speed will be throttled up to 1Mbps.”

In simple terms, being throttled means that your upload and download speeds will be significantly reduced. You just got pulled over – except that the ISPs are nicer than the Highway Police and they let you off with a warning.

lego 5567753 1920 | Vox | Vox MTN LTE-A Promotion: Double the FUP, Double the Fun This Festive Season

That’s because with FUP, your ISP doesn’t send you to jail and stop your Internet usage completely, but instead allows you to continue accessing the Internet and ‘keep on driving’ – just significantly slower for a while. By restricting individuals’ bandwidth, more people can use the Internet service at the same time.

 

The Convenience and Quality of LTE-A Connectivity

With high-speed, top-quality Internet access, Fixed LTE-A offers connectivity that provides near-Fibre like experiences, together with hassle free installation: a plug and play service means no waiting for fixed line installation.

In addition, where Fibre networks might take weeks or months to roll out and to install, Fixed LTE-A is a rapid order-to-installation product – whenever there is high-density Fixed LTE-A coverage, the time to deliver quality Internet access is between seven to 10 days – another win as we approach the festive season!

go sign 2816455 1920 | Vox | Vox MTN LTE-A Promotion: Double the FUP, Double the Fun This Festive Season

Enough Bandwidth for the Good Times

Many people are still on vacation quite late into January, after which they go back to school, varsity / college, and work. And so now we see the real advantage of signing up for the promo – increased data consumption! (And as mentioned previously – free of charge!)

Different apps have different data appetites – streaming on Netflix or Showmax in HD will consume more data than just reading an article online, and downloading a game eats up more data than actually playing it.

Here are some everyday activities that you and your family are likely to be doing more of at this time of the year, together with their possible hourly data consumption rates:

  • Web browsing: Approximately 50 to 70MB per hour.
  • Streaming video: High-definition (HD) video can consume up to 8GB per hour.
  • Online gaming: Up to 100MB per hour.
  • Social media: Platforms like Instagram and Facebook can use around 200MB per hour.

 

Vox and MTN Fixed LTE-A Promo Offerings

The current promotion applies to two of our Vox Fixed MTN LTE-A offerings, as follows:

Normal Offering:

  • R849 per month: Uncapped with normal FUP of 1,000GB (ie line speed is throttled back for the rest of the month when you / your household have used 1,000GB of data).
  • R499 per month: Uncapped 50MBps with normal FUP of 500GB (line speed is throttled for the rest of the month when 500GB of data usage is reached).

Promotional Offering:

During the promotion period, the Uncapped 1,000GB FUP offering will be extended to 2,000GB, and the uncapped 50Mbps FUP offering will be doubled to 1,000GB (1TB of data usage).

RICA documents will be required when ordering Vox Fixed MTN LTE-A and these are:

  • A certified copy of your ID; and
  • Proof of your residential address that is not older than three months.

A Great Start to the Year

With the Vox / MTN Uncapped LTE promotion, we’re offering you – free of charge – double the bandwidth before FUP is applied, on the specified packages.

  • No more slow internet
  • Stream without buffering
  • Connect to multiple smart devices
  • VoIP calling and lightning-fast connection
  • Efficient for going back to work and studies

AdobeStock 399195503 resized 3 | Vox | Vox MTN LTE-A Promotion: Double the FUP, Double the Fun This Festive Season

From video calls to streaming entertainment, gaming and online shopping, Vox and MTN’s Fixed LTE Uncapped Double the FUP deal has you covered to ensure that your Internet connection is up to the task and ready to manage the digital demands of you and your family.

You can click here to find out more .

What’s a 3CX – And What Does Titanium Status Actually Mean?

Posted on by Natalie van der Merwe

In an IT world full of acronyms, we unpack this brilliant technology

 

3CX is an open-standard[1], software-based business phone system that delivers advanced telephony functionality and is super easy to use, manage and install. 3CX is an Enterprise-grade communications platform that is primarily targeted at the SME market due to its affordability – and yet, in an interesting twist, many enterprise businesses are also adopting 3CX, as they take note of its benefits.

3CX offers very competitive pricing, as well as feature-rich Unified Communication functionality, which includes instant messaging or chat; Voice; video conferencing and data sharing; email, voicemail and SMS; and out-of-the-box integrations into popular CRMs.

Vox is a 3CX Titanium Partner – we operate at the highest 3CX partnership level, to the tremendous benefit of our customers. We are also one of a select few Titanium partners in South Africa, the highest level that a 3CX partner can achieve, and awarded only to 3CX’s most successful and experienced partners.

 

3CX features 1 1 | Vox | What's a 3CX - And What Does Titanium Status Actually Mean? 

Benefits for Vox Clients

Titanium partner status is reserved for true 3CX all-stars! This, together with our Advanced Technical Certification, guarantees our customers excellent service and support.  In addition, Titanium partner status ensures we get the best price from 3CX, which allows us to offer an enterprise grade product at pricing all customers can afford.

We are also Certified as a Preferred 3CX SIP Trunk provider[2] (one of only two in South Africa), which gives customers additional peace of mind that our network is compatible with any 3CX deployment. We have been thoroughly tested with 3CX to ensure no manual configurations, which means you can simply plug and play your PBX with our SIP trunks.

 

How the Vox-3CX Partnership Began

Before onboarding 3CX, Vox was selling a combination of open-sourced, on-premises and cloud-based solutions, which provided very basic PBX functionality.  Although it satisfied the requirement for thousands of customers, we knew that we needed to expand our portfolio to be more relevant with our offerings and technology.

Simply put, we needed a product that would carry us into the future.

Before 2020, on-premises solutions were becoming less relevant, and our customer demands for UC&C[3] were increasing significantly – which our solutions at the time did not offer.  When we were faced with the pandemic in 2020, it became clear that we required UC&C offerings to cater to our customers’ work from home communication requirements.

Becoming a 3CX partner for Vox was a very seamless process, but it did take drive, dedication and ambition to take this further and achieve Titanium status.  Vox is an agile business, and so we are able to make decisions and change direction very quickly to ensure that our customers have the products and services they need.

In the quest to present the best solution possible, we spent significant time in our R&D labs running tests, documenting our installation best practices and automating many of our provisioning processes. The end result was being able to go to market confidently with a working solution, and without any hiccups.  This was a critical step, as it cemented our long-term relationship with our customers.

Our engineers flew through the technical certification process and managed to achieve Advanced Technical certification within the first two months of becoming a 3CX partner.

Our team of sales specialists, who are dedicated to anything PBX, also completed their technical certifications, which gave them the ability to confidently design and sell 3CX solutions to prospective customers.

3CX made it easy for Vox to become technically certified with their free on-line training and assessments.

 

Along the Way

Together with the certification for Technicians and Sales Specialists, we also upskilled all our direct and indirect sales force employees, equipping them to understand the value of 3CX and uncover opportunities with customers. Overall, our comprehensive training programme included everyone from sales, pre-sales, installations engineers, support engineers, and core engineers.

We moved through the partner status ranks in record time – starting at Bronze, we worked our way up to Titanium status in less than one year (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Titanium) – a feat of which we’re very proud, as it shows our ability to adapt, and our willingness to do more.

It wasn’t very long after launching that we realised we had hit the jackpot – our customers loved 3CX, our sales staff loved 3CX and our engineers loved 3CX!  This was a recipe for success and before we knew it, we were hitting the lights out.

 

Moving forward

Vox is able to support all types and sizes of customers – we have 3CX customers ranging from two or three extensions to customers with thousands of extensions.

Cloud PBX | Vox | What's a 3CX - And What Does Titanium Status Actually Mean?

And in addition to this, we don’t only sell 3CX – Vox offers a complete suite of complementary products: from last mile connectivity and market leading uncapped or rated calling plans, world-class data infrastructure to host customers 3CX services, to telephone expense management reporting.  We are proud to add this to our 3CX achievements over the last three to four years.

The journey to Titanium Partner status demands a high level of technical skill, dedication to customer satisfaction, and a proven track record in implementing 3CX solutions.

Becoming a 3CX Titanium Partner marked a significant achievement for Vox, and we are very proud to be able to let our clients know that we have achieved this milestone in supporting and maintaining their 3CX systems.

 

[1] An open standard is a standard that is freely available for adoption, implementation and updates. Examples include XML, SQL and HTML Businesses within an industry share open standards because this allows them to bring value to both themselves and to customers.

 

[2] SIP Trunks are virtual phone lines that are delivered over the internet, replacing the need for physical telephone lines.

 

[3] Unified Communications and Collaboration (UC&C) integrates diverse communication tools, such as Voice, IP Telephony Calling, Instant Messaging, Desktop Sharing, Presence, and Web Conferencing, Audio Conferencing, and Video Conferencing, to interact together in a virtually seamless way.

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