Pre Paid Data Bundles [PPDBs]

Should this thread be closed (locked)?

  • Yes, put it out of its misery

    Votes: 7 41.2%

  • No, I don't like euthanasia, leave it to die painfully & alone

    Votes: 10 58.8%

  • I'm confused, maybe all of the above

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    17
  • Poll closed .
Prometheus said:
You can actually do that? Can a person do that themselves?
Click to expand...

Not sre if I understand the question, you can check your own profile on 4me and always confirm it with 155 if need be.

We've recently made some changes to the network and this type of info is not avialable on 4me.

Or do you have something else in mind?
 
ic said:
I think v3g meant the data profile of the sim card in the data card, not CeeBee's profile...
Click to expand...
I thought he meant the data used and speed it is used at. Not too sure what he meant anymore so maybe he should explain. :) Would be interesting to be able to check those stuff ourselves.
vodacom3g said:
Not sre if I understand the question, you can check your own profile on 4me and always confirm it with 155 if need be.

We've recently made some changes to the network and this type of info is not avialable on 4me.

Or do you have something else in mind?
Click to expand...
Ok, now I understand more.
 
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Any idea when cheaper data rates will be available for prepaid Vodacom 3G / HSDPA users ?

Is Vodacom still even considering cheaper data rates for prepaid customers ?

Thanks
 
yeah, two words, one idea... : bend over & open wide!
If VC (or MTN) were gonna do cheaper rates, I'm sure they would've started already, VM's better pricing has been known for a long time now.
Suppose they believe in customer loyalty..... Guess they reckon there are still thousands of people who will continue using the standard prepaid system - no need to reduce profits.
u ask me; you want loyalty, get a dog!
(happily writing this on VM, at 50c/Mb, no bundle, no fixed usage period) :)
 
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CeeBee said:
yeah, two words, one idea... : bend over & open wide!
If VC (or MTN) were gonna do cheaper rates, I'm sure they would've started already, VM's better pricing has been known for a long time now.
Suppose they believe in customer loyalty..... Guess they reckon there are still thousands of people who will continue using the standard prepaid system - no need to reduce profits.
u ask me; you want loyalty, get a dog!
(happily writing this on VM, at 50c/Mb, no bundle, no fixed usage period) :)
Click to expand...

50c per MB might be the best deal the moment, but it is still a ripoff. I don't care that it is "mobile", it is still to expensive at 50c ..... 5c sounds a lot better.
 
We dload **** loads so give us 5c a MEG then we'll be happy. I'm sick of all these 'telco' companies thinking that all you do with an internet connection is light browsing and email...ffs get on with rolling out PPDBs already.
 
I got my prepay solution - I think

I bought a Motorola C113 phone with a Family Top Up contract prepaid for the next two years for R899 from Smartcom. It works out at R38 per month to get R135 worth of money per month on your contract. I will add R25 per month and will fax tomorrow the application to load a 250MB 3G bundle per month. I will pay the equivalent of R0.252 per MB - The cheapest by far.
 
FireTelkom said:
....will fax tomorrow the application to load a 250MB 3G bundle per month.
Click to expand...
Ummmm - hate to have to say this but:-
SORRY FOR YOU :p
Family Top-Up is based on the Pre-Paid billing infrastructure - so until they have figured PPDB's out - there is no way of getting a data bundle on TopUp.... believe me I've tried :(
 
I will fax the form back to smartcom today. When I bought the cards the lady that assisted me confirmed that I could do this and the call centre guy had no problem indicating that I had to subscribe to the bundles by completing the form he faxed me and it would be loaded from the beginning of Sept. Lets wait and see.

FireTelkom
 
Tried them all

I have now tried all (almost) the Cellular operators and have to say that Vodacom still offers the best "service".

1. Go into Pick and Pay and buy a R1.99 Vodacom SIM, plug it into a phone, dial 100 and you are connected. Call 155 and enable the card for data, at most this takes 1 day. Plug the SIM into your data card and you are surfing albeit at R2.00 per meg.

2. Go into Pick and Pay and buy a R1.99 MTN SIM, plug it into the phone and read the booklet. Dial 141 and get a "the number you have dialled is incorrect message".
Dial 173 and listen the whistling tunes that drive you insane, speak to an operator and get told to dial 141 from the phone the enable the SIM. Explain that 141 does not work, get told you are talking nonsense, try 141 again just for fun, get the same message. Call 173 again and explain that 141 does not work, get told you must wait 24 hours after putting the phone on...
Wait 24 hours...
Call 173 again and say its still not working...find out you can also call 555 from the phone.
Finally get the phone activated and load airtime, call 173 to enable DATA, wait another day, call again and wait another day, give up for a week, call again and finally its done.
Plug the phone into your Data card, find out the data card is network locked :)
Get another data card and connect using edge at 384K, get 119K transfer speeds...
Don’t even bother to try and move airtime to data bundles, press 1 for bundle information, press..2....press 3 to purchase data... You can press 3 until you go blue, it does nothing.. the system really sucks!

3. Get a Cell-C SIM, enable for data when the web page finally loads.. plug the card into your (unlocked) data card, get connection speeds of 384K and transfer speeds of 80K.

4. Would it be fair to say the Cell-C and Virgin Mobile experience would be the same, in all honesty I have not tried them yet.

By far the most pleasant experience is Vodacom, I WISH they would just sort out the pre paid data bundles so we don’t have to pay R 2.00 per meg.

V3G, please put a fire cracker under the dude running with this, its now time...
 
Phaff said:
2. Go into Pick and Pay and buy a R1.99 MTN SIM, plug it into the phone and read the booklet. Dial 141 and get a "the number you have dialled is incorrect message".
Dial 173 and listen the whistling tunes that drive you insane, speak to an operator and get told to dial 141 from the phone the enable the SIM. Explain that 141 does not work, get told you are talking nonsense, try 141 again just for fun, get the same message. Call 173 again and explain that 141 does not work, get told you must wait 24 hours after putting the phone on...
Wait 24 hours...
Call 173 again and say its still not working...find out you can also call 555 from the phone.
Finally get the phone activated and load airtime, call 173 to enable DATA, wait another day, call again and wait another day, give up for a week, call again and finally its done.
Plug the phone into your Data card, find out the data card is network locked :)
Get another data card and connect using edge at 384K, get 119K transfer speeds...
Don’t even bother to try and move airtime to data bundles, press 1 for bundle information, press..2....press 3 to purchase data... You can press 3 until you go blue, it does nothing.. the system really sucks!
Click to expand...

Strange - I also got the R1.99 MTN sim. Put it in a phone, loaded R50 airtime (got my R10 free), put it in the data card and was surfing on EDGE. Dialed 141 and converted R10 to data bundle and it worked fine. BUT, still waiting for VM data card sim for 50c/meg.
 
I havent visited here in a while - and would like to know if data bundles are available on Top Up packages?
 
adsl3g said:
...Dialed 141 and converted R10 to data bundle and it worked fine. BUT, still waiting for VM data card sim for 50c/meg.
Click to expand...

Right, it eventually worked although I swear calling 141 gives me a message saying the number you have dialled is incorrect...so I dial 555...

But just discovered why I cant load bundles... I also loaded R 10.00 at first to see how and if it worked, now I tried again but there is no opion 3 to load data bundles, it seems that you can only load one data bundle per month with MTN. So if you tested it with R 10.00 you have to wait 30 days before you can load the next bundle.

Hopefully the wait for Vodacom's PPDB means that the system will be user friendly and actually work.
 
adsl3g said:
Strange - I also got the R1.99 MTN sim. Put it in a phone, loaded R50 airtime (got my R10 free), put it in the data card and was surfing on EDGE. Dialed 141 and converted R10 to data bundle and it worked fine. BUT, still waiting for VM data card sim for 50c/meg.
Click to expand...
Here too, within minutes of inserting the sim. :)
Phaff said:
2. Go into Pick and Pay and buy a R1.99 MTN SIM, plug it into the phone and read the booklet. Dial 141 and get a "the number you have dialled is incorrect message".
Dial 173 and listen the whistling tunes that drive you insane, speak to an operator and get told to dial 141 from the phone the enable the SIM. Explain that 141 does not work, get told you are talking nonsense, try 141 again just for fun, get the same message. Call 173 again and explain that 141 does not work, get told you must wait 24 hours after putting the phone on...
Wait 24 hours...
Call 173 again and say its still not working...find out you can also call 555 from the phone.
Finally get the phone activated and load airtime, call 173 to enable DATA, wait another day, call again and wait another day, give up for a week, call again and finally its done.
Plug the phone into your Data card, find out the data card is network locked :)
Get another data card and connect using edge at 384K, get 119K transfer speeds...
Don’t even bother to try and move airtime to data bundles, press 1 for bundle information, press..2....press 3 to purchase data... You can press 3 until you go blue, it does nothing.. the system really sucks!
Click to expand...
The only reason loading a data bundle would not work is if you already loaded one in the past month in which case you would not have an option 3 and if you just assumed it is there you would be thrown back into the menu. But i c you figured that one out. It would have been the same on Vodacom if they had them, but lets not enter that little detail into the equation. When MTN annouces something they usually have it and it's working. The system doesn't suck but works as it was intended to.

And sorry for pointing out the obvious here, but if you put your MTN sim into a Vodacom data card and it is network locked then it is not MTN's fault it is VODACOM'S FAULT. Another point against Vodacom. As for the 141 number not working. Tried for an hour once to get through on Vodacom's 100 number and it also didn't want to work so I guess the networks all have the same problems at one time or another. Then there are the numerous disconnects on Vodacom's gprs (not on MTN in my experience) which is also slower than a snail. The only service that might be better on Vodacom is support, but I hear that that is also going down the drain lately.

Haven't used Cell-C so I wouldn't know if the experience is the same as VM. I do know that VM's GPRS/EDGE speed beats MTN's which beats Vodacom's. Only waiting for the launch of 3G/HSDPA which should happen before the end of the year. Should be even better when Sir Branson starts building his own network.

Btw. This rant is not against you but mainly against Vodacom whos problems also seem to be seeping through to Cell-C and VM, but you will get this reaction when trying to convince people that Vodacom has the better service in a thread where people have been waiting for far over a year for Vodacom to decide to finally launch a service which a lot of people don't even need anymore. :rolleyes:
 
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