On-device browsing on MTN BIS is "not free"

M

MandM

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 28, 2006
Messages
910
Reaction score
64
Location
Western Cape
:mad:

Since the beginning of April, MTN is deducting my on-device browsing on my Blackberry from my airtime (R220 so far)! I am so frustrated with the call centre operators as well as the staff in store: time and again I find that I know more than they do. The last pearl of wisdom from a member of the MTN team on 808 was that only e-mail and BBM is free on BIS and that on-device browsing is not. My word, I have been using BIS since last year, surely I would have noticed if this was the case.

My problem has now been submitted to the billing department. I am too scared to touch my phone...
 
MandM said:
Hi CranialBlaze,

I had it set to blackberry.net , but was told by MTN to remove it.
Click to expand...

Makes no dif either way, was checking if u mistakenly had it set @ internet, that would explain some of it.
 
I have asked,

he looked at his statement (called them even) general on cell surfing & what not is included in the BIS on his package.
 
Venomous said:
I have asked,

he looked at his statement (called them even) general on cell surfing & what not is included in the BIS on his package.
Click to expand...

Thanks Venomous, that is correct and I have been browsing using BIS on my phone for months without any problems. I am just amazed that the MTN Blackberry experts (and I use that term VERY loosely!) doesn't know this.
 
MandM said:
Thanks Venomous, that is correct and I have been browsing using BIS on my phone for months without any problems. I am just amazed that the MTN Blackberry experts (and I use that term VERY loosely!) doesn't know this.
Click to expand...

After being withMTN for 2 years and all the trouble I had I am far from surprised about their lack of knowledge, the only company with the required stupidity to outshine them would be Virgin Mobile, their blackberry experts would probably tell you BIS is a fruit.

Have you had any luck yet resolving the issue?
 
Got the same issue with my 2nd BB on MTN.. Fun times tomorrow when I call them as the EDR-http report i requested shows only BIS acceptable usage.
 
I am still busy with sorting this out. As the call centre was not helping, I submitted a query on the MTN Active website. Below is my latest query and the response I got:

My query relates to Invoice Nr xxx. On 75 occasions during the billing period charges were deducted from my airtime for using the mymtn apn. I have a Blackberry phone with BIS. I did not have any data streaming and use my phone for email and on-device browsing with the Blackberry browser only. These deductions have now stopped by itself after my first complaint.
Can you please tell me what was accessed on those occasions as I feel charges were unfairly deducted from my airtime and should have come from BIS.If this is indeed the case, I would like myairtime to be refunded.

Kind regards,
xxx
Reallocated to group 'MTN Active SupportHub' on 24/05/2011 at 15:19:26
Picked-up by 'xxx' on 24/05/2011 at 15:20:42
Good day xxx,

Thank you for submitting your request through the MTN Active.

We sincerely apologize for the delayed response, we are constantly looking at means to improve our service delivery.

Please be advised that when you brows using mymtn there will be a charge, but when browsing using blackberry.net there will be no charge. Please note that you can contact our data helpdesk on 1555 for assistance on the browser set up.

We thank you for your co-operation and continued support.

Kind regards,
xxx

So another useless answer. My browser is not setup incorrectly. This happened by itself and was fixed by itself. I would like to see what accessed the mymtn apn.

Anyway, I am not going to give up until I understand what happened!
 
Last edited:
krycor said:
Got the same issue with my 2nd BB on MTN.. Fun times tomorrow when I call them as the EDR-http report i requested shows only BIS acceptable usage.
Click to expand...

I am so glad that I am not alone. Krycor, did you resolve this?
 
If you want to be 100% sure your phone never uses anything but BIS. Go under Advanced Settings -> TCP/IP . Remove all the security settings there, [disable the checkbox "APN Settings Enabled"] .

Any app that doesn't use BIS will not be able to connect and give an error. That's the easiest way to figure out what apps do not use BIS. (and there are plenty, so don't just assume everything goes via BIS) .

Also keep in mind you can set on almost every app how they should use the internet. Even the built-in browser can be set to not use BIS by default.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X