3G usage and reload

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koffiejunkie

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Linux folks,

I'm thinking of dragging my old man out of the dial-up era and giving him a 3G dongle. I'm also looking at giving him something to put in-between his PC and the 3G modem so that I can get some firewalling and proxy going and get his computer off the perimeter.

So two quick questions:

1. Does any of the providers let you see your usage on a website or portal somewhere and if so, do they allow you to connect to said site when you're on a 0 balance?

2. Does any of the providers allow you to recharge on-line? Last time I was in S.A. this wasn't the case.

In this respect, I'll quickly describe what my provider (3.co.uk) does. When I connect and my balance is 0, any URL I go to gets redirected to a 3.co.uk page that tells me I have no data left. I can then log in, and buy anything from 1GB to 15GB (I think, maybe more) using my credit card, and it's added straight away. The only catch is I have to reconnect to make it active. I can also go to the site and log in at any time to view my balance.

This will be important, because whatever I end up using is going to be a black box to the old man. I have tried for nearly a decade, in vain, to get him interested in Linux. He's an engineer and in his young days designed and built computers down to the transister level and inputting runtime code in binary. So I was expecting Linux to appeal to him, particularly since he finds Windows frustrating (he moved from DOS straight to XP).

So I might go for a commercial 3G router, simply so that user troubleshooting can be limited to switch-off/unplug/plug in/switch on.

Thanks
 
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Not a linux guy but, yes you can monitor your data and airtime balance on the vodacom website.

Buying bundles online is a bit more tricky, I used to log onto internet banking and buy prepaid airtime then use the airtime to buy data bundles on vodacom's site. So no you would not be able to do this without any money/data on the sim...

/I moved my mobile data usage cell c recently. With them u have to use USSD commands to check the data balance. Not many routers support USSD commands unfortunately.
 
koffiejunkie said:
I'm thinking of dragging my old man out of the dial-up era and giving him a 3G dongle. I'm also looking at giving him something to put inbetween the 3G modem so that I can get some firewalling and proxy going and get his computer off the perimeter.
Click to expand...
I've had my old man on 3G for nearly four years now, first MTN contract, then MTN pre-paid, then Vodacom pre-paid and now Cell-C one year pre-paid.
koffiejunkie said:
1. Does any of the providers let you see your usage on a website or portal somewhere and if so, do they allow you to connect to said site when you're on a 0 balance?
Click to expand...
Vodacom have a site for both pre-paid and contract users, but according to their support it cannot be accessed with a zero balance, see here.
MTN have a site for contract users only.
Cell-C have a new site, which at this stage doesn't seem to be showing the data bundle balance but the entire www.cellc.co.za site is accessible with a zero balance.
koffiejunkie said:
2. Does any of the providers allow you to recharge on-line? Last time I was in S.A. this wasn't the case.
Click to expand...
I don't know of any operator offering this facility.

It is however possible to top up airtime using internet banking and then convert the airtime into a data bundle. I believe FNB have the facility to purchase a data bundle directly.

My advice:
Avoid any data contract, with any operator.
The procedure with MTN and Vodacom was painful; when my father ran out of airtime he'd have to phone me, I'd log in with his internet banking details, purchase pre-paid airtime and then he'd use USSD to convert the airtime into a bundle.
MTN at least had direct codes for the various bundle sizes, but Vodacom force one to use the *111# menu, which is difficult for old fingers to navigate within the 20 second timeout.
With Cell-C's current one year pre-paid option he's been able to buy more than three times the data he was using for the same price, and doesn't have to worry about topping up for a year.

If you do go the Linux route you can use gsm-ussd to check the balance.
Update: It sounds like USSD support may be added to the TP-Link routers, see here.
Just out of interest, USSD only seems to be really popular in South Africa and Eastern European countries.
 
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ginggs, thanks for your extensive reply. Is CellC any good these days? I was on a CellC contract some five years ago, and while I was happy with the phone service, their data service sucked.

ginggs said:
With Cell-C's current one year pre-paid option he's been able to buy more than three times the data he was using for the same price, and doesn't have to worry about topping up for a year.
Click to expand...

Is this the one you're referring to?

ginggs said:
Just out of interest, USSD only seems to be really popular in South Africa and Eastern European countries.
Click to expand...

I don't want to be smug, but that might be because we don't really need it anywhere else. I can't speak for other "western" countries, but regular broadband is so cheap, reliable and pervasive that most people only use 3G as a on-the-move solution, and even that isn't all that often because of the variety of wifi hotspots that allow you to log in with your BT or T-Mobile or whatever account.
 
koffiejunkie said:
ginggs, thanks for your extensive reply. Is CellC any good these days? I was on a CellC contract some five years ago, and while I was happy with the phone service, their data service sucked.
Click to expand...
They only recently launched their 3G/HSPA network, but so far so good.
koffiejunkie said:
Is this the one you're referring to?
Click to expand...
That's the one.
koffiejunkie said:
I don't want to be smug, but that might be because we don't really need it anywhere else.
Click to expand...
You may not really need 3G as a fixed line replacement, but USSD is very useful on a mobile phone; one can check balances, activate and deactivate services, top-up pre-paid airtime all through USSD.
 
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ginggs said:
You may not really need 3G as a fixed line replacement
Click to expand...

I wasn't suggesting that, it's just that 3G is a fair bit more expensive than regular broadband, i.e. for the price of 3GB per month 3G, I get uncapped, unshaped, 24mbit/1.3mbit (up/down) ADSL2+ so 3G is very much not seen as a viable alternative for regular broadband.

ginggs said:
but USSD is very useful on a mobile phone; one can check balances, activate and deactivate services, top-up pre-paid airtime all through USSD.
Click to expand...

I wasn't familiar with USSD - had to google it :) It does look useful.
 
koffiejunkie said:
I wasn't familiar with USSD - had to google it :) It does look useful.
Click to expand...
Yep, South Africa's (and Eastern Europe's) best kept secret. :)

O/T: I had a family member visit from the USA earlier this year with an original iPhone (jailbroken of course), we were both surprised by the iPhone's USSD support, given Apple's reluctance to adopt technologies such as 3G, MMS and Flash that other manufacturers had been supporting for years.
 
ginggs said:
we were both surprised by the iPhone's USSD support, given Apple's reluctance to adopt technologies such as 3G, MMS and Flash that other manufacturers had been supporting for years.
Click to expand...

iPhone has had 3G since the second revision. Having spent a fair bit of time in the US, my theory is the only reason that they left it out initially, is that 3G on AT&T is so bad, it's almost irrelevant. Even after three years of improving that network, it still sucks.
 
koffiejunkie said:
iPhone has had 3G since the second revision.
Click to expand...
Granted, and they've had copy & paste and MMS support since iOS 3.0, but when they released the original iPhone, other manufacturers already had HSDPA.
 
My point was, in 3rd world countries where you can easily wait six months to a year for your ADSL to get installed, stuff like 3G and HSDPA are absolutely essential, while it seems to me that in the US it was much of a muchness, which is mostly likely why they didn't bother to put it in.
 
koffiejunkie said:
My point was, in 3rd world countries where you can easily wait six months to a year for your ADSL to get installed, stuff like 3G and HSDPA are absolutely essential, while it seems to me that in the US it was much of a muchness, which is mostly likely why they didn't bother to put it in.
Click to expand...
Agreed, but Apple have good USSD support, even though most of the world doesn't use it, hence my surprise.
 
Thanks to all who replied. A short update on this, I bought a Netgear MBR624GU router - older model (or wrong picture) at Prophecy. This has a USB port where you plug your dongle in. The wizard interface has almost the exact same logic as the "add mobile broadband" wizard in Network Manager. Sorta: "Hey, you have a USB device plugged in. Choose your country. Now choose your network. BOOM!" Quick and painless and it works really really well.

Unfortunately, of my variety of USB 3G modems, the only supported one happens to be the one that is network locked. So I'll look into finding another one - I'm anyway looking for one that has a jack for an external antenna. What's nice about this option is, if his PC is somewhere where the reception is dodgy, the router can stand where ever the reception is good.

The CellC option does indeed look good. I hope coverage in die platteland is good :D
 
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Thought I'd bump this. I bought a Huawei 3G dongle - don't remember the exact number now, 156G possibly, but it's unbranded and not network locked, and works like a champ with the Netgear router.

So my trip is imminent, and I thought I'd just check if anything new has come along? So far, the CellC still looks like the best, if I'm not missing something?

Oh, and this kind of important: Does anyone have first-hand experience with 3G in Stilfontein?
 
Have you checked the cell c coverage map? Even if it says you have coverage I would suggest you get a prepaid sim and test first. Read of too many burned fingers...

/remember that cell c uses 900MHz UTMS so not all phones or modems are compatible.
Also, all sims need to be RICA'ed now before you can use it.
 
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