MTN - SIM not working.

[atomcrusher]

For many years I have had the same MTN SIM in my mobile phone. After I retired, and my contract was up, I went the prepaid route, as I do not make many calls, nor do I use much data on my phone.

However when I am out of the house, and so not connected via WiFi, I turn on my data so that I can receive emails, Twitter & Facebook messages, etc.

I always turn my phone off overnight, and switch it back on early each morning. For the past few weeks I have struggled to connect to MTN, and sometimes a phone shutdown and restart re-enables the SIM, but more often I can't connect to the MTN network

So today I went down to the local MTN store in the town and they tried my SIM in one of their phones ... it did not work.

They told me they are busy upgrading local MTN infrastructure to enable 4G / LTE locally (Swellendam, WC) and that there were some problems with getting older SIMs to work.

The told me to come back on Friday when they were expecting stock of "new SIMs" and that they would then do a SIM swap so that my phone would work OK.

Anyone else had similar problems?

 

[JimM]

I'm not sure I'd believe this, your SIM is probably fine but you're having problems because of a faulty network roll-out...

 

[atomcrusher]

I'm not sure I'd believe this, your SIM is probably fine but you're having problems because of a faulty network roll-out...

I suspect you are right. But one would think that the local MTN staff would be more clued up on what is happening. I have decided to go with Vodacom prepaid, although having a new number will be a pain I guess

 

[sajunky]

You can port number, but it is better to stay with MTN, their problems are temporary due to roll-out. Buy a new prepaid SIM R1, you can test whether their claims are true or not. I would go even further: Get Telkom Mobile Starter Pack R49, it would give you 200MB data per month for period 12 months. This data package is roaming to MTN, so you can test both Telkom and MTN connection and also have a cheap data @2c/MB. Remember to switch to SIMSonke tariff 75c/25c per minute (per second billing) and cheap SMS/MMS (for MTN the best prepaid tariff is 1c/s - 60c/min to all networks).

 

[atomcrusher]

You can port number, but it is better to stay with MTN, their problems are temporary due to roll-out. Buy a new prepaid SIM R1, you can test whether their claims are true or not. I would go even further: Get Telkom Mobile Starter Pack R49, it would give you 200MB data per month for period 12 months. This data package is roaming to MTN, so you can test both Telkom and MTN connection and also have a cheap data @2c/MB. Remember to switch to SIMSonke tariff 75c/25c per minute (per second billing) and cheap SMS/MMS (for MTN the best prepaid tariff is 1c/s - 60c/min to all networks).

Thanks for the heads-up

 

[Chris The Man]

Get a new SIM-Card and do a SIM-Swap.

 

[atomcrusher]

You can port number, but it is better to stay with MTN, their problems are temporary due to roll-out. Buy a new prepaid SIM R1, you can test whether their claims are true or not. I would go even further: Get Telkom Mobile Starter Pack R49, it would give you 200MB data per month for period 12 months. This data package is roaming to MTN, so you can test both Telkom and MTN connection and also have a cheap data @2c/MB. Remember to switch to SIMSonke tariff 75c/25c per minute (per second billing) and cheap SMS/MMS (for MTN the best prepaid tariff is 1c/s - 60c/min to all networks).

Looks like Telkom Mobile may not work where I live

 

[cavedog]

Looks like Telkom Mobile may not work where I live

View attachment 204678

Telkom Mobile Internet staterpacks come with "All Networks" data which means it works on Telkom towers but if there aren't any then it will also work on MTN.

 

[atomcrusher]

Telkom Mobile Internet staterpacks come with "All Networks" data which means it works on Telkom towers but if there aren't any then it will also work on MTN.

Thanks for that info ..I assume then that Telkom Mobile also has some kind of agreement with MTN? If so, then do they have a similar agreement with Vodacom & CellC?

 

[sajunky]

Thanks for that info ..I assume then that Telkom Mobile also has some kind of agreement with MTN? If so, then do they have a similar agreement with Vodacom & CellC?

Yes, and roaming works well on 2G/3G (not sure about LTE).

Cell C agreement with Vodacom has two problems:

1. It is not seamless, which means that handover to Vodacom cannot be initiated by the Cell C tower and in reverse. Both networks have no information about neighbour cells of the other network. When the handset or modem decide on its own to find better cell, it just starts searching, frequently loses connection.

2. Roaming is only 2G (very slow). In addition, Vodacom towers allow Cell C SIM to register to 3G services, but when device try to use it, there is no throughput. It gives many problem to Cell C users in the areas where is a presence of strong Vodacom signal.