Issue with SIM card, please help.

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Anscenic

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Hello.

I ported to Virgin Mobile from MTN in November 2008 (well, I opened the contract in November and the port was only completed a week before Christmas 2008).

Reason I ported was that my mother couldn't handle my excessive phone bills from SMSing so we opted for the "unlimited SMSes" contract and everything was swell until January 2009...

I assume that most of you have heard of the constant complains from VMobile users about delayed SMSes, no network coverage etc. That started for me in about January 2009. I was unable to log onto MXit. I thought it might be the phone so I started using the one I got with the contract (I had gotten a new phone December 2008 and it was in 100% working condition so I kept the contract phone as a spare). MXit wouldn't even load on the phone. Then the delayed SMSes started and everything went upside down from there.

Sometimes I don't have network coverage at all, can't make or receive calls (same for SMSes). I have called VMobile countless times to ask them why this happens and I get the similar responses every single time... "We are upgrading our infrastructre so there will be downtime" or "our servers are down at the moment so some customers are experiencing issues". They once deactivated my number altogether and they refused to let me unbar that because I am not the account holder. My mom had to call and it turns out that they mistakenly barred me instead of another user. I feel that is VERY irresponsible on their part.

This year I was also without network coverage for a couple of days and we called VMobile and they said that a lot of people were experiencing this and so I was told to do a SIM swap and I did just that.

Anyway, sorry for the long story but I am extremely frustrated. To get to the point...

The phone which I got with the contract is EXTREMELY SLOW and it used to work fine up until the first time I experienced no network coverage for an entire weekend (Nokia 5000).
The phone I got in December 2008 DOES NOT SWITCH ON. It used to randomly switch itself off after January 2009 and when I tried to use it after the Nokia 5000 started being slow, it literally corrupted. I can't switch it on for more than 5 minutes. I can't access any of the folders on there and it doesn't let me restore it (Nokia 6300).

My boyfriend let me use his iMate SP5 in July 2009. Everything was 100% awesome until the phone started to once again switch itself off. We couldn't figure out why it was doing this so he gave me his older Sony Ericsson to use. Might I just add that VMobile couldn't even give me internet settings for the SP5 which irritated me.

The Sony Ericsson has so far been the most stable of all though it does randomly switch off. I can't use MXit and 9 out of 10 times I can't connect to the internet and I get an error that says "No network coverage" or something to that effect. I also used my mom's old Nokia (N73) in January and it also started to randomly switch off and now she has to use it again since her primary phone broke and it has all these random errors.

What leads me to post here is this:

On Wednesday my boyfriend decided to try fix the iMate so I could use it again. He brought it to me on Thursday and it turned on 100% fine without any complications WITHOUT my VMobile SIM card. He put it into the phone and when he tried to switch it on, it didn't switch on and it basically froze. He took the SIM card out, started the phone up, all my SIM card contacts were somehow saved and the phone was EXTREMELY SLOW. He reformatted it, put his SIM card inside (he is with Vodacom), the phone worked fine. He put mine back in, same issue as above - it didn't work. He put his back in, it worked. He used the phone the entire day, it was fine.

When he downloaded MXit to see if it would work, he said the phone crashed. He reformatted it and he put his SIM card in and it was fine. The moment we put mine in (about half an hour ago), it did the same as it did before.

Why does the phone (and any other phone for that matter) do this with my VMobile SIM card? I've done a SIM swap so the actual card shouldn't be the problem since problems started before I did a SIM swap.
 
Last edited:
Try doing another SIM swap. Sounds to me like your first SIM Card got buggered somehow, so you did a SIM Swap, then the 2nd SIM Card also got buggered. 3rd time lucky? Hopefully!

Perhaps there is something you are doing that is damaging the sim card. Either you are moving it from phone to phone too often, or storing it near magnets or other electrical components that could interfere with it, or perhaps one of the phones you tried actually damaged the SIM Card. It is is possible for the phone to damage, say, only Virgin Mobile sim cards (though unlikely), but happily accepts and works fine with Vodacom SIM Cards. The circuit design inside Vodacom and Virgin SIM cards could be slightly different, or the Virgin one could be of an inferior quality.
 
Your problems seem very familiar to me. Been with virgin for almost 2 years and experienced almost all of that. Here are some points and answers

Delayed sms: this happens as a result of the edge connection. Sms and edge use the same modem. Once you connect to the internet via edge this is hogging the modem and sms can't come through. A solution is to send a sms to yourself or make a call. Then sms will come through. This should not happen anymore once 3G goes live.

Internet and mms settings: check the forum. There are tons of threads with info

No reception: I am also experiencing this lately. Not much you can do. Reception seems very week lately and my connection keeps dropping randomly in places where normally I should have full reception. I will try a sim swap and recommend you do the same
 
Oh, in my 2 years I've been with virgin I had to do 4 sim swaps. Nothing unusual
 
ChilliGirl said:
Have you tried asking your SP to do a sim swap?
Click to expand...

Yes. Earlier this year I did a SIM swap.
I forgot to mention (since the original post was long enough as is) that when I was doing the SIM swap I told the person helping me that my internet often never works. I was using the Nokia 5000 again at this time and he said "just download settings". I told him that I had repeatedly done so, on various phones and at different times and it didn't ever work.
He fidgeted with the phone, went to www.google.com and he said "look, it works". I told him that I can sometimes browse the internet but the issue was that MXit doesn't work. He opened it and it worked which shocked me beyond anything but as soon as I left the store, the connection went funny and by the time I got home, I was unable to connect to MXit once again.

iCubed.Saajid said:
Try doing another SIM swap. Sounds to me like your first SIM Card got buggered somehow, so you did a SIM Swap, then the 2nd SIM Card also got buggered. 3rd time lucky? Hopefully!

Perhaps there is something you are doing that is damaging the sim card. Either you are moving it from phone to phone too often, or storing it near magnets or other electrical components that could interfere with it, or perhaps one of the phones you tried actually damaged the SIM Card. It is is possible for the phone to damage, say, only Virgin Mobile sim cards (though unlikely), but happily accepts and works fine with Vodacom SIM Cards. The circuit design inside Vodacom and Virgin SIM cards could be slightly different, or the Virgin one could be of an inferior quality.
Click to expand...

I shall try a SIM swap again :) thank you for the suggestion.
I did think that the changing phones might have damaged the card because the first SIM card I had was the original one which I got back in 2002 and after I ported I still used the MTN one until I did the SIM swap earlier this year. I haven't changed this new SIM card often at all. I used it in the Nokia 5000 after the SIM swap and I only changed it to the Sony Ericsson once and that was it. Only this week did it I remove it to put it into the iMate. Though perhaps the design is faulty or of inferior/different quality.

I think what I will do is go to VM next week with the iMate, do a SIM swap, put the brand new SIM into the iMate and if it still messes up then I give up! I have a prepaid Vodacom SIM card in the Nokia 5000 at the moment (switched off though) so I will test that one with the iMate as well and take it to VM to show them that it is not the phone that is the problem.

Tim182 said:
Your problems seem very familiar to me. Been with virgin for almost 2 years and experienced almost all of that. Here are some points and answers

Delayed sms: this happens as a result of the edge connection. Sms and edge use the same modem. Once you connect to the internet via edge this is hogging the modem and sms can't come through. A solution is to send a sms to yourself or make a call. Then sms will come through. This should not happen anymore once 3G goes live.

Internet and mms settings: check the forum. There are tons of threads with info

No reception: I am also experiencing this lately. Not much you can do. Reception seems very week lately and my connection keeps dropping randomly in places where normally I should have full reception. I will try a sim swap and recommend you do the same
Click to expand...

It is very unfortunate that all of this happens to so many people :/

Delayed SMS: I don't often use the internet on my phone since it never works, lol, so the fact that my SMSes seldom come in or go through shouldn't be affected by the internet. Yesterday, for example, I didn't use the internet at all and when I got home, my mother asked me why I never replied to her SMS from a few hours before that. I told her that I never got an SMS and she showed me that she had sent me one and I was not suprised that I didn't get it. I SMSed myself and the SMS never came through and I actually did get other SMSes during the time when my mom did SMS me (such as the bank telling me I made a purchase with my debit card and what not).

On Wednesday, I had a test and it ended at 18:30. I was driving home and I never touch my phone while driving. When I got home, my step dad asked me why I didn't answer and I told him that I was driving and he said that he had been calling for a while and it just went into voice mail. I checked the phone, no missed calls or SMSes to say that I had missed calls.

Last week, the girl that I tutor had her Maths test and I told her to SMS me if she wants extra tutorial sessions before the test. When I went to her for our regular session she asked me if she had my number correct because she had SMSed both the number she had and the one I had SMSed her from to ask if I can do an extra lesson with her and I didn't receive the SMS she sent to my proper number!

Also, last week, I got an SMS to tell me that I had missed calls. I checked the date, it was dated June or July 2010 :/ that was very strange.

I have the correct internet settings because I can connect to the internet sometimes... As for the iMate settings, if I get the phone to work with the SIM card I will check back for those settings, thank you :)

Reception does seem very weak! I literally need to stand still when I make a call and it is very cackly (best way to describe it) and I often ask the person on the other side to repeat what they said because I didn't hear, and I do that for almost every sentence or word. It is very frustrating.

If you do a SIM swap let me know how it goes.

Tim182 said:
Oh, in my 2 years I've been with virgin I had to do 4 sim swaps. Nothing unusual
Click to expand...

Did the SIM swaps help temporarily or did they just not help at all? I feel that the SIM swap I did earlier this year did not help at all regarding the internet/sms issues I have.
The purpose of the SIM swap, as I said before, was because I had no network coverage and I was told that a lot of people are experiencing this and I had to get a SIM swap to fix it, which it did fix.

Thank you for all the help everyone, I hope that I can sort this out otherwise I am unfortunately going to have to change networks because I can't deal with the fact that one day I could potentially lose my job over not getting SMSes calls, not being able to call someone in an emergency or someone trying to call me and not being able to get through in an emergency.
 
Anscenic said:
Did the SIM swaps help temporarily or did they just not help at all? I feel that the SIM swap I did earlier this year did not help at all regarding the internet/sms issues I have.
The purpose of the SIM swap, as I said before, was because I had no network coverage and I was told that a lot of people are experiencing this and I had to get a SIM swap to fix it, which it did fix.

Thank you for all the help everyone, I hope that I can sort this out otherwise I am unfortunately going to have to change networks because I can't deal with the fact that one day I could potentially lose my job over not getting SMSes calls, not being able to call someone in an emergency or someone trying to call me and not being able to get through in an emergency.
Click to expand...

SIM swap helps until the SIM breaks again which can be weeks, months or never. They had a very bad batch apparently about 1 year ago to half a year ago so could well be that you got some of the bad ones. Make sure your internet settings are correct, if they are internet will work (most of the time). Again if not, its probably the SIM card.

Also, try using manual network search and try to go on vodacom (virgin roaming). for some people this works and solves all issues
 
Tim182 said:
SIM swap helps until the SIM breaks again which can be weeks, months or never. They had a very bad batch apparently about 1 year ago to half a year ago so could well be that you got some of the bad ones. Make sure your internet settings are correct, if they are internet will work (most of the time). Again if not, its probably the SIM card.

Also, try using manual network search and try to go on vodacom (virgin roaming). for some people this works and solves all issues
Click to expand...

That makes sense then because I got my SIM swap in March or so... Seems to fall in your time frame of bad batch SIM cards so thank you for that information :)

If I put it to Vodacom, I won't incur extra costs correct? I've tried to switch it before but for some reason it didn't let me haha :)
 
Anscenic said:
That makes sense then because I got my SIM swap in March or so... Seems to fall in your time frame of bad batch SIM cards so thank you for that information :)

If I put it to Vodacom, I won't incur extra costs correct? I've tried to switch it before but for some reason it didn't let me haha :)
Click to expand...

No extra costs.
 
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