The mystery of disappearing Vodacom airtime

[elvis_presley]

The question is why the phones used mobile data to connect to the google services instead of wifi. Maybe this is a phone anomaly. Statistically the test is incomplete because only one phone per network was used. Try setting up all 4 phones on one network and see if they all give identical data usage.

Yes, it's a pretty bad test, but the reason it uses mobile data is quite logical - it's quite understandable that the phone keeps an internal note of whether the mobile network is functioning, and to do this needs to send a ping over the mobile network. I'm sure the same is attempted over wifi if you're on mobile data.

Having said that, though - I've had a torch on my internet's breakout since last night and not once has any device in my house tried to ping that IP via wifi... so we're back where we started... maybe it pings that IP when it reconnects to a new antenna or something?

 

[Swa]

The problem is with android.

I have seen a similar issue where even if the phone is on wifi and a stable connection the apn stil connects and although no data is being transferred the phone still auths using the APN. If anything android skips the wifi connection and just establishes a connection via the apn it will consume data.

The real issue is not blocking OOB usage by default. MTN and Telkom redirects you to a nofunds.mtn.co.za , oob.telkom.co.za pages and those pages are zero rated so even if there is a connection established with the APN no data will be transferred.

The real issue is that Vodacom will charge you a minimum just for connecting and not even using data. Reminds of how MTN proclaimed they though it was standard to charge for LTE connection data when it turned out it wasn't. But this is nothing new. Since the earliest days I'd have money disappearing from my Vodacom balance without making any calls or sending an sms. The solution here seems to be to disable mobile data completely and not just set it to prefer wifi.

Actually makes sense... sounds like Android's fault ... it makes sense that they'd do some pings over mobile data to test the mobile connection. There's not really any other way of doing it. Perhaps MTN and Telkom just got ahead of the curve and zero-rated that IP.

It can be done over wifi, a mobile connection isn't a necessity so no reason to test it. But is there confirmation it really does so when on wifi? Seems like a design flaw if it's the case.

 

[jannievanzyl]

The real issue is that Vodacom will charge you a minimum just for connecting and not even using data.

100% incorrect.

 

[Swa]

100% incorrect.

So there's no minimum data charge any more?