Can I use a UK £G modem/dongle in SA?

[Tinkletonkle]

Hi all,

Apologies if this has been asked before (I can't find the thread).

I'm returning to SA from the UK and will need some decent internet for video skyping while there for 9 months before returning to the UK for another year. I was going to go for fixed line uncapped but I see Telkom still rips us off with line rental so am thinking of going for 8ta's 60+60 deal on 3G.

My question is, if I buy the 3G modem/dongle here, will it work in SA? The Vodafone people here tell me it will work but that I may need security settings changed or some such, to fit with SA legislation or the like?

I suspect it should be as easy as putting the 8ta sim card in but don't want to buy the modem here to have it not work there (it would be much cheaper to buy here though).

Any advice is much appreciated!

Cheers,
Andrew

 

[sajunky]

It will work unless it is SIM-locked for UK operator. No need to change security settings (what a hell it is?). SA is using European frequencies 900/2100MHz for UMTS.

 

[Tinkletonkle]

It will work unless it is SIM-locked for UK operator. No need to change security settings (what a hell it is?). SA is using European frequencies 900/2100MHz for UMTS.

Thanks very much. Yup, I didn't know what he was talking about but I'm not computer expert myself. Perhaps he was referring to firmware or something that I'd need to download from an SA operator? Anyway, I guess it's worth a shot then...I want to get one of these wifi dongles to which 5 devices can connect. It'd be about R600 here which I think is the same as a regular 3G modem in SA?

Thanks for the help!

 

[PostmanPot]

I'm returning to SA from the UK

Cool.

 

[sajunky]

Think about Huawei B683 (R1100 @8ta stores) or R201 (R205).

You must be avare that Vodafone modems even not SIM locked present problems to the users due to the two reasons:
- bloatware eating up lot of computer resources
- it does not allow to dial other networks. You need basically to unload it from memory and use third-party software.