MTN manipulating networks?

[mathapelo12]

My mother bought a phone last year with MTN SIM locked and had problems using the 2nd SIM ( Telkom). The network was always a problem when using data from Telkom. It never worked. But she mostly used it for calls so it wasn't that big of a deal.
Me being a premium idiot bought an mtn phone last month after mine was stolen. It's a Redmi 10A. It's the phone I wanted n unfortunately it was only MTN network that had it. So I bought it n now SIM one is locked to MTN. It's fine I can deal with that. My only problem now is that MTN won't allow telkom data to work. It shows an R in a circle at the top. I bought Telkom LTE bundles for R250 n now they're not working. When I put my SIM in another person's phone it works fine. So the problems is the MTN phone. Which is insane. Am I missing something. Is MTN allowed to do this. Because to me it looks like this is done on purpose so if ur using Telkom on SIM 2 it doesn't work. So now I'm forced to use MTN data only. Are they doing this on purpose so we're stuck with only using mtn. This is manipulation at its best. If I'm wrong n there a way to fix this pls let me know.
* I messaged Telkom on twitter n they sent me instructions which I followed n it still doesn't work.
I also tried to enable/disable Telkom R SA but that also didn't work. I bought this bundle because I've used it before n it worked fine on other phones.
So now I'm considering buying a cheap phone just to hotspot my phone to use the Telkom data.
Pls help. Any advice will be appreciated.

 

[Dups!]

Yes, MTN and Vodacom can and do do that. Unfortunately, there is nothing much you can do. Next time, do not buy phones from the networks themselves, they are network-locked.