Porting to a promotional data SIM? [solved]

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gadnex

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I am planning on getting the 2 gig Cell C Data Promotion SIM deal for use in my smartphone.

According to the booklet that accompanies the Data Promotion bundles (Downloaded from Cell C website), it clearly states that the SIM can be used in a phone and can make calls. They say all calls will be at the All-Day tariff.

I am happy with all of this, but would like to port my existing phone number from Vodacom to Cell C. I actually have an 084 number that I ported a few years back from Cell C to Vodacom.

I was wondering if anyone has tried a number port with any of the new Cell C deals? I spoke to a salesman at a Cell C store a while ago to enquire about this. I was told it would probably be possible, but they could not understand why I would want to do this.
 
I phoned them last week and if you want to take the Data option on monthly (contract) terms its then bolted to a chat contract (extra R130 I think).

But on the porting I see no reason why they will not do it. We see a lot of numbers ported back and forth in our database (we are a WASP). I have heard of some hicups but that is more to the number portability database not being accessable when the guys do their daily updates.
 
I am sure you can port your number with out any problem. If they say no, then you can try this.
Port the number first to prepaid cell c.
Then ask them to use the same number to be used for the data bundle.
I think in that way you dont have to RICA again.
Only issue i would think is your sim if it supports the new 3.5G, if it is not then you will have to do a sim swap.
 
Thanks for the advice about number portability. Good to hear it should be possible.
 
gadnex said:
I am planning on getting the 2 gig Cell C Data Promotion SIM deal for use in my smartphone.

According to the booklet that accompanies the Data Promotion bundles (Downloaded from Cell C website), it clearly states that the SIM can be used in a phone and can make calls. They say all calls will be at the All-Day tariff.

I am happy with all of this, but would like to port my existing phone number from Vodacom to Cell C. I actually have an 084 number that I ported a few years back from Cell C to Vodacom.

I was wondering if anyone has tried a number port with any of the new Cell C deals? I spoke to a salesman at a Cell C store a while ago to enquire about this. I was told it would probably be possible, but they could not understand why I would want to do this.
Click to expand...

I am planning on doing the same thing...except I am planning on moving from MTN to Cell C.
found this
http://www.cellc.co.za/services/mobile-number-portability
 
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Posting this message from Cell C store. They where very helpful and called Cell C technical to request how to do do the number port to the Cell C data SIM. Unfortunately technical support says it is not possible on the prepaid option, but it is possible on the contract option.

I do not want to sign up for a contract, so I guess I am stuck on Vodacom for now.

If anyone has better luck or advice, please let us know here.
 
gadnex said:
I do not want to sign up for a contract, so I guess I am stuck on Vodacom for now.

If anyone has better luck or advice, please let us know here.
Click to expand...
I would advise against porting, I know too many people who've had problems being unreachable from some networks. Once it even happened almost a year after porting.

Do you really need to keep your old number?
 
gadnex said:
Posting this message from Cell C store. They where very helpful and called Cell C technical to request how to do do the number port to the Cell C data SIM. Unfortunately technical support says it is not possible on the prepaid option, but it is possible on the contract option.
Click to expand...

Oh No...will pop over to the Sandton city branch and enquire about this.
 
just to update you guys.....went to cell c at Sandton city to enquire/buy the 24gb sim for R999 for my phone and the rep said you can port your number from another network but you cant use it in your phone for data as it will use the money you topped for voice calls!...WTF....this doesn't make sense

at the Cell C store in Morningside Shopping Centre the rep said you can use it in your phone but you cant port your number cause its a data sim. I asked him why its not possible since you can program any sim with any number....the guy was stumped and agreed with me. He took my number and he said he will get back to me after speaking to the technical guy (who was on his day off) tomorrow or Monday.

gggrrrrr.......what's with all the confusing info...
 
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My previous post on Friday was from the Cell C in the East Rand Mall (Boksburg) as I showed the manager this MyBroadband thread and he wanted to do a post to provide some info to community.

Just to elaborate more as to what I saw. It seems the prepaid data sims are pre-assigned with a cell number and that cannot be changed. When you attempt the port from the internal Cell C web application, you enter the sim serial number and it does not even recognise it in the porting application. I guess this application would only recognise sims that are not yet linked to a cell number. On the contract deals however, the manager told me they use a normal sim, like they do for sim swaps and that does give them the option to port numbers.

The problem with the contract option is that you cannot get the sim only deal, you have to take the deal with the white dongle as well. At R 149 per month * 12 it would cost a total of R 1788 and when compared to the pre-paid sim only deal at R 999, you end up paying R 789 more per year. But you do get the white dongle extra, that you will not use.

What I do not like about contracts is that you always have to pay these additional fees like itemised billing and caller line identity as well as the bank charges for the debit order from your bank account.

In this case the call rates for the contract and prepaid options are actually the same (R150 per minute), so you get abosulutely no benefit from signing up for a contract, thus I cannot see the reason for paying more.

What I find strange about the whole thing is that Cell C actually stand the chance of eaning more money from Smartphone users (voice charges) than they do from data only users. Smartphone users are also less likely to use up the whole 2 gigs per month. In my mind, not allowing number porting on the sim only data deals is throwing away good business.
 
thanks for keeping us updated guys
seems like most of us want to do the samething ....port our number and use a 2gb/5gb data SIM on prepaid with our phones ...with no contract hassles.
its not that hard....why cant Cell C do it for prepaid!!!
 
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This morning I sent a personal message to Cell_C and i got a reply stating they may be able to assit us. I was told to send an email to [email protected].

I will send them an email now, and will post the response here. I hope they can assit.
 
Great news gadnex!

I'm holding thumbs and a drinks tab for you if you get this sorted (and are in CPT to claim :) )
 
gadnex said:
This morning I sent a personal message to Cell_C and i got a reply stating they may be able to assit us. I was told to send an email to [email protected].

I will send them an email now, and will post the response here. I hope they can assit.
Click to expand...

No response from Cell C yet, still waiting (im)patiently.
 
mith said:
He took my number and he said he will get back to me after speaking to the technical guy (who was on his day off) tomorrow or Monday.

gggrrrrr.......what's with all the confusing info...
Click to expand...

Just to give you an update, the guy from Cell C Morningside hasn't called me yet....so much for customer service!
Looks like I will have to pass by there again.....
 
gadnex said:
Please let us know here if you hear anything. I will do the same if I get a response.
Click to expand...

Naturally, but somehow I don't have a lot of hope. Which is really frustrating, because before they launched I was told in no uncertain terms that this would definitely be possible.
 
This morning I sent another MyBroadband Forum personal message to Cell_C enquiring about the support email I sent. They called me back a little while ago and it seems they may be able to help.

I have since also received an email telling me what I need to do, but I was not sure about some of the details. What it basically comes down to is that I need to buy the Cell C promotional data sim and then email the sim number and my cell number to technical support and they will process the number port on the back end.

I know already from my experience last Friday that it is not possible through the Cell C in store web application, but I guess the technical support guys can perform these changes directly on their database.

As soon as I know more, I will report back on this forum.
 
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