South Africa's visitors charged exorbitant roaming data fees

It’s usually better to jump through the regulatory hurdles and get a local sim but it’s made more difficult with manufacturers, I’m looking at you Apple, producing esim only phones.
 
The operators as so petty about useless things. These days buying an eSIM and using WhatsApp is so frekkin easy and cheap.

The only roaming functionality I still use is SMS for some pesky OTPs that can come through (FNB has been good in general but have one or two idiotic SMS left, and a bunch of other non-banks haven't heard of the open MFA standards and would rather waste money on sending SMS).
 
It’s usually better to jump through the regulatory hurdles and get a local sim but it’s made more difficult with manufacturers, I’m looking at you Apple, producing esim only phones.
You can pretty much buy a data-only esim to any country using Nomad or similar without jumping through hoops. And you can do it before you leave and just switch on your phone when you arrive. Stress-free and easy.

I used Nomad in the US. I also used an Orange Holiday eSIM in Spain. Orange only requires you to go through the hoops if you are using the phone longer than 30 days.
 
You can pretty much buy a data-only esim to any country using Nomad or similar without jumping through hoops. And you can do it before you leave and just switch on your phone when you arrive. Stress-free and easy.
I’ve used various international eSIM providers globally and they’re not without their foibles.

Plus they’re almost always more expensive than local data and rarely, in my experience, offer local calling.
 
This is really not a south african problem, if you go overseas and dont disable data roaming you will end up in the same boat.

What I did was when my significant other visited SA, was give them one of my old phones with a prepaid MTN sim and told them to switch off their phone, its not worth taking a risk.
 
This does not sound right

My Danish cousin got an eSIM from an MTN store in 30 mins. Another few mins at my house setting it up, bought R500 airtime and data

This was in January. She has an iPhone 15. She was here for 6 weeks

The biggest hurdle was not a SIM but the Home Affairs lady at the airport. She said her passport must be valid for 6 months (it expired in May) and there was an argument before she was admitted
 
My Danish cousin got an eSIM from an MTN store in 30 mins.
I signed up for Mint mobile in the US in 10 minutes online before I left SA but that’s not really the issue, it it?

Many visitors might not have a cousin in SA to guide them and won’t necessarily want to have to go a store? SA’s RICA regulations were I’ll conceived to say the least.
 
Go to your local paki. Ask for a sim card. Discard when leaving again.
 
Surely airports have some facility for foreigners to get a local SIM card and data quickly and cheaply.
Or am I just expecting too much again.
 
I’ve used various international eSIM providers globally and they’re not without their foibles.

Plus they’re almost always more expensive than local data and rarely, in my experience, offer local calling.
When I bought the eSims they were cheap as chips. And I don't care about local calling - as long as I have data I am good to go.if there was a premium it was slight. I also only use a couple of gigs when travelling because hotels and so on always seem to have wifi and that is where heavy data use is anyway. So even if it is R10 more per GB the convenience is worth it. Wasting time in a foreign country is expensive. I have a strict land-and-go policy. Just get esim before you leave.

If I really need voice I am happy to roam on that because that is the number that everybody has, but the only phone calls I receive these days are spam which is sent to the ether. I will probably disable my mailbox as well as I never check it. So maybe if by accident I really need to call somebody I am willing to pay slightly extra but that never happened so far.

Oh - and I forgot to add - at work Teams have also taken over and I have a SA number that routes to my Teams.
 
I signed up for Mint mobile in the US in 10 minutes online before I left SA but that’s not really the issue, it it?

Many visitors might not have a cousin in SA to guide them and won’t necessarily want to have to go a store? SA’s RICA regulations were I’ll conceived to say the least.
The regulations are a joke. Most shops are just too happy for the commission and will take ANY form of ID and even an email with your address. I don't understand why people complain that it's so hard to RICA a sim.
 
When I bought the eSims they were cheap as chips.
There's a long defunct oxymoronic simile given the cost of chips.

if there was a premium it was slight.
It's how they make their money. I can't count the number of times I've had to get a local sim because the coverage Airalo or some other company didn't live up to its promise. Kenya, Uganda, USA...

Wasting time in a foreign country is expensive. I have a strict land-and-go policy. Just get esim before you leave.
Did you miss this part? "I signed up for Mint mobile in the US in 10 minutes online before I left SA"? Same goes for Lyca in the UK. Done and dusted before I even go to the airport.

The regulations are a joke. Most shops are just too happy for the commission and will take ANY form of ID and even an email with your address. I don't understand why people complain that it's so hard to RICA a sim.
Because it is an unnecessary waste of time.
 
There's a long defunct oxymoronic simile given the cost of chips.


It's how they make their money. I can't count the number of times I've had to get a local sim because the coverage Airalo or some other company didn't live up to its promise. Kenya, Uganda, USA...


Did you miss this part? "I signed up for Mint mobile in the US in 10 minutes online before I left SA"? Same goes for Lyca in the UK. Done and dusted before I even go to the airport.


Because it is an unnecessary waste of time.

Ha. Peace brother! I am not saying these nomadic eSIM are the absolute best thing. Just that they are relatively frictionless and the point is that they are a million times cheaper than roaming.

Not sure who in their right mind* roams with data and also not sure why the scam went on for so long. There are options :eSIMs online, local Sims etc. They jig is up and the people profiteering from roaming should just wake up.


* So there are people NOT in their right minds that does it. Especially if employer pays the bill. Or they are pretend** rich.

** From my experience real rich people don't fall for scams like this. And the very rich don't carry phones on them like a royal doesn't carry a wallet. They have an assistant that does that.
 
The only roaming functionality I still use is SMS for some pesky OTPs that can come through (FNB has been good in general but have one or two idiotic SMS left, and a bunch of other non-banks haven't heard of the open MFA standards and would rather waste money on sending SMS).

When I went overseas I told Standard Bank the dates, countries blah blah all that stuff.

In 2 weeks I had 4 separate occasions where I was blocked from transacting further using my card that was linked to Apple Pay online for train tickets, Ubers/Bolts etc until their delayed "Reply Y if it's you doing these transactions" SMS came through. And once it was so delayed that I got a call from the SB fraud dept at the same time.

Discovery card zero issues, didn't even have to tell them I was overseas.
 
There's a long defunct oxymoronic simile given the cost of chips.


It's how they make their money. I can't count the number of times I've had to get a local sim because the coverage Airalo or some other company didn't live up to its promise. Kenya, Uganda, USA...


Did you miss this part? "I signed up for Mint mobile in the US in 10 minutes online before I left SA"? Same goes for Lyca in the UK. Done and dusted before I even go to the airport.


Because it is an unnecessary waste of time.
Agreed but it's not like it's any kind of hurdle. I bought a Telkom sim from Checkers. Their system was down so I went to a Telkom shop in the same mall. They just took down my ID number without making any copies of anything and took the address of a random bill I just put down on the table that wasn't even mine. It's shocking how there are so many intentional loopholes that the whole system is useless.

Ha. Peace brother! I am not saying these nomadic eSIM are the absolute best thing. Just that they are relatively frictionless and the point is that they are a million times cheaper than roaming.

Not sure who in their right mind* roams with data and also not sure why the scam went on for so long. There are options :eSIMs online, local Sims etc. They jig is up and the people profiteering from roaming should just wake up.


* So there are people NOT in their right minds that does it. Especially if employer pays the bill. Or they are pretend** rich.

** From my experience real rich people don't fall for scams like this. And the very rich don't carry phones on them like a royal doesn't carry a wallet. They have an assistant that does that.
Or if you're a minister on an international trip watching porn.
 
all calls, text messages and data is unlimited when i use my t-mobile line in SA

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