RICA SIM registration deadline may be extended

MTN recently reported that their postpaid (contract) revenues are down but that prepaid revenues are compensating for it.
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All I got from this article is that the cellphone operators openly admits to milking their most loyal customers - those on contract.
 
I still don't get the stupidity, I FICA'ed my bank account that you debit but I have to RICA my phone ?!?!?!?!?!?
I can understand the pre-paid having to do it.
 
they extend it otherwise vodacon and emptyn will haved to drop their customers = less $$

bastards
 
Imminent said:
they extend it otherwise vodacon and emptyn will haved to drop their customers = less $$

bastards
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It gives one an idea of how many "illegal" cell phones there are in the country. The average criminal, illegal immigrant, non-regulatory citizen, etc. would defnitely not wanted to be RICA'ed :o
 
Gentlemen, I for one shall not be RICA'ing my sim card for obvious reasons - The RICA act sucks donkey genitals. The other reason is that I do not see the logic in RICA when it comes to a contract phone...I clearly remember giving all of my details to Vodacum. Why then am I forced to RICA if this was done? There's something fishy about this act, and I'd rather be cellphone-less than having Big Broer breathing down my neck all the time whenever I make a call...
 
Shaun108 said:
Gentlemen, I for one shall not be RICA'ing my sim card for obvious reasons - The RICA act sucks donkey genitals. The other reason is that I do not see the logic in RICA when it comes to a contract phone...I clearly remember giving all of my details to Vodacum. Why then am I forced to RICA if this was done? There's something fishy about this act, and I'd rather be cellphone-less than having Big Broer breathing down my neck all the time whenever I make a call...
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Kewl... you might want to break out the old blanket, wood and fire lighters... cos ur gonna have to start using smoke signals.
 
You sound dangerously like a supporter of RICA, Mr. Shogun...
 
Shaun108 said:
You sound dangerously like a supporter of RICA, Mr. Shogun...
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I don't much care either way. I don't like the big brother side of things, but i've already seen instances where it might have been very useful (stalkers sms'ing abusive text). So, there are two sides to it.

For those of us on contract, they can already get our details if they have a court order, so not much changes.

My gripes are:
1. I'm on contract, so they already have my details... why the need for me to RICA?
2. There are huuge holes from what i've picked up... like allowing someone to register their address as a nearby school or church or something. This is obviously necessary... but possibly a huge hole.
3. If criminals want to communicate via cellphone, they can use some form of voip with encryption (to stop eavesdropping)... and if they want to use it to trigger a bomb or something, they can use other radio equipment to do that... so I don't see this stopping calculated criminals. I'm sure there are a lot of "but they could be traced by xyz on their cellphone" responses... but for each one of those, there's a way around it.

At least they can get assistance catching the idiot criminals.
 
Useless.
I couldn't even get my old number back that was registered to me.
 
'MTN and Cell C did not comment by the time of publication.' - Jan, you mean MTN and 8ta right? Please hire a proof reader!
 
Joe Average said:
It gives one an idea of how many "illegal" cell phones there are in the country. The average criminal, illegal immigrant, non-regulatory citizen, etc. would defnitely not wanted to be RICA'ed :o
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Find random school kid. Bribe 100 bucks to do the RICA for you.

This is just like DRM, gun laws, FICA etc. Inconvenience to honest people & a source of laughs for dishonest people.

Nobody takes this business seriously anyway. I got my cell register with only 1/2 the required docs.
 
This extension was always going to happen. There are MILLIONS of unregistered prepaid cellphone users in the townships out there that represent a significant loss of revenue for the cellphone companies should the RICA deadline be enforced. One thing you can sure of, is that the RICA deadline will probably be extended over and over again for the next few years, because these unregistered millions are never going to RICA their sim cards. Most of them do not have id books or any proof of residence whatsover. I predict the end of RICA in a few years time, it's just too impractical to implement.
 
Shaun108 said:
Gentlemen, I for one shall not be RICA'ing my sim card for obvious reasons - The RICA act sucks donkey genitals. The other reason is that I do not see the logic in RICA when it comes to a contract phone...I clearly remember giving all of my details to Vodacum. Why then am I forced to RICA if this was done? There's something fishy about this act, and I'd rather be cellphone-less than having Big Broer breathing down my neck all the time whenever I make a call...
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I've also been thinking along these lines. Don't know if I'll go through with it yet, but frankly I just don't feel like it. They've got my FICA crap, they have all my details, they can go sit on their thumbs for all I care. Our government is too incompetent to do anything useful with the information anyway. They should be spending this effort on getting a national DNA database going instead.
 
Tomasz-London said:
'MTN and Cell C did not comment by the time of publication.' - Jan, you mean MTN and 8ta right? Please hire a proof reader!
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That is a typo...

But why bother with 8ta? They won't activate your SIM without it being RICA'd so they are not affected by this extension.
 
After registering several phones for RICA this year, I found some issues related to the process quite ridiculous.

1. You have to submit all the documents each time you get a new phone or upgrade, if you've registered once, why can't they just re-use the details on the system?
2. Because of the way the cell operators work, I have to register for RICA, even when I just want a phone and not the sim card? Every single store I've been to refused to let me just buy the phone.
3. When you get a green ID book, you have to register a physical address, normally its written on a lil slip type thing that comes together with your ID. Why not just check the validity of this address when ID's are applied for, so that whenever your barcode is scanned in, it automatically provides physical address details etc. ( This might be a bit much to ask of home affairs)

All in all, its quite a farce...Outdated legislation and seemingly no explanation on how they will practically use this information, will any SAPS officer have access to it, to what extent will your rights be curtailed? Its all a bit ridiculous...
 
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