Content subscription services can be a nuisance for mobile users in South Africa, as they are quick to eat through airtime and can be difficult to detect.<\/p>\n
There are multiple ways to check if your airtime is being taken by a WASP, but what about blocking them before they can bill you?<\/p>\n
Certain mobile providers allow you to block your number from being subscribed to a WASP service, and to see how the systems work, we put them to the test.<\/p>\n
We loaded a SIM from Vodacom, MTN, Cell C, and Telkom with airtime and placed the SIMs into Nokia 5 smartphones.<\/p>\n
These devices support LTE and run the latest version of Android.<\/p>\n
After loading the airtime, we enabled any anti-WASP settings on the respective networks and tried to get the devices subscribed to a WASP.<\/p>\n
The WASP for this test was 35050 Gold, which charges a subscription fee of R5 per day for access to a variety of game, media, and music content.<\/p>\n
For each SIM, we attempted to subscribe the number by visiting the 35050 website and entering the SIM’s number into the subscription field.<\/p>\n
Telkom allows you to block all WASP subscriptions by default – a feature which can be enabled through the Telkom app.<\/p>\n
It should be noted that Telkom also requires double opt-in confirmation for all WASP subscriptions.<\/p>\n
We downloaded the app, logged into our account and enabled the option to prevent any WASP subscriptions.<\/p>\n
To block all content service subscriptions on your Telkom number, navigate to Login > My product > Manage > Protect Your Mobile Number, and set it to ON.<\/p>\n
When we tried to register the SIM, the 35050 website returned the following message:<\/p>\n
Your number has been blocked for premium subscriptions. Please contact us via webappsupport for further assistance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nCell C<\/h3>\n
Cell C also allows users to block all WASP subscriptions by default.<\/p>\n
Additionally, Cell C requires double opt-in confirmation for all WASP subscriptions.<\/p>\n
Subscribers can dial *133*1# to access the Content Services menu and manage any subscriptions active on their SIM.<\/p>\n
They can also select the “Block My Number” option on this USSD menu to prevent their SIM from being subscribed to WASP services.<\/p>\n
When we tried to register the Cell C SIM, the 35050 website returned the following message:<\/p>\n
Your number has been blocked for premium subscriptions. Please contact us via webappsupport for further assistance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nVodacom<\/h3>\n
According to Vodacom, it is possible to block your number from being subscribed to WASP services, but it requires you to visit a branch and fill out a form.<\/p>\n
For this test, we checked if the operator’s double opt-in security measure was working.<\/p>\n
Double opt-in is enabled by default and is a requirement for all WASP sign-ups on the Vodacom network.<\/p>\n
After signing up for the 35050 Gold service with our Vodacom number, we received the following SMS on the device:<\/p>\n
Confirm your request for 35050 Gold @ R5.00 \/day. Reply “Yes” to confirm\/”No” to cancel, free SMS.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nMTN<\/h3>\n
MTN offers no way for subscribers to block their numbers from WASP subscriptions.<\/p>\n
Instead, it relies on its default double opt-in security measures to protect customers from accidental or fraudulent WASP sign-ups.<\/p>\n
This is enabled by default on the MTN network.<\/p>\n
After signing up for 35050 Gold on the MTN SIM, we received the following confirmation request via SMS:<\/p>\n
Reply YES or NO to confirm your request for 35050 Gold Unlimited Downloads from Buongiorno at R5.00 Daily. To unsubscribe dial *136*5#.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nNow read:\u00a0We stand by our word and will help customers with WASP refunds \u2013 Vodacom<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We tested how resistant mobile networks are to being subscribed to WASP services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341028,"featured_media":173020,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[50329,355,35,42,109,41,5054],"class_list":["post-257729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-35050-gold","tag-cell-c","tag-headline","tag-mtn","tag-telkom","tag-vodacom","tag-wasp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257729"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341028"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257729"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":258015,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257729\/revisions\/258015"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}