Free SIM swap from MTN

Interesting.

VC recently charged the company R150 (or something like that) because a SIM card was "too old" for 3G and had to be replaced. An excellent way to make a many years long loyal customer look around for better loyalty from a service provider to long time customers.
 
Which brings me to my next question: what about contract customers? Come on MTN, we feel left out here (again).
 
This is a great initiative by MTN. I think it is a good example of investing in an initiative which is beneficial to both the company and consumers, without immediately trying to make consumers pay for this investment.

MTN has changed gears I think – Tim Lowry and his team is clearly not content with their current market share, and with a strong team like this I think Vodacom and Cell C will have to take note. Not the same MTN SA as two or three years ago!
 
Turiko said:
terms and conditions apply
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Don't you love that sort of thing? bleh...

Just seen RPM's post - with the current financial situation the companies will have to look at new methods to generate revenue and attract more customers.

This is good for the consumer as vodacom and cellc have to reply with something similar.
 
As far as I know is that Virgin has been doing this for years...... Well as long as they have been SA.
 
rpm said:
This is a great initiative by MTN. I think it is a good example of investing in an initiative which is beneficial to both the company and consumers, without immediately trying to make consumers pay for this investment.

MTN has changed gears I think – Tim Lowry and his team is clearly not content with their current market share, and with a strong team like this I think Vodacom and Cell C will have to take note. Not the same MTN SA as two or three years ago!
Click to expand...

And Tim is an awesome down to earth guy. Spoke to him a couple of times in the passages
 
They make enough money from stolen blacklisted phones that are put back in circulation.:rolleyes:
 
Pitbull said:
And Tim is an awesome down to earth guy. Spoke to him a couple of times in the passages
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Agreed. I have dealt with Tim a few times at media events, and he is a very nice guy and definitely very good at what he does. And he surrounded himself with competent people. MTN has becomes a far nicer company to deal with and things are happening. I am really looking forward to the battle between MTN SA and Vodacom SA :)
 
Pitbull said:
Are you trying to say something about MTN and illegal activities ?

:confused:
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All the cellular operators have blackisted phones on their networks. They can't do anything about it. The criminals change the IMEI to circumvent blacklisting, and it's been going on since cellphones have been in SA. I have seen IMEI's being cloned/hacked in supposedly legitimate cellphone sweat...er repair shops!

A system that validates the IMEI is prone to false positives, particularly from cloned IMEI's and is outside the scope of the GSM spec. It also requires massive resources I think.
 
Turiko said:
All the cellular operators have blackisted phones on their networks. They can't do anything about it. The criminals change the IMEI to circumvent blacklisting, and it's been going on since cellphones have been in SA.
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Now how is that the fault of any of the networks in SA ?

I feel he tried to say something in that post of his and would like to call him out on it. Just say what he wanted to say :rolleyes:
 
It's not their fault, I never said it was their fault. It happens the world over, do a search and you'll see Italy and Spain are huge into cellphone hacks.

I am totally surprised that the iBurst UTD hasn't been targeted yet, but then again, it reveals the average IQ of the people who steal the stuff, they are not too sure what they can do with a modem, but they sure as hell can use a cellphone. A UTD cannot make and receive calls, it needs a computer and software and/or a proper VoIP handset. However with that fugly phone/modem thing of iBurps I am sure it will happen. UTID hacking/cloning FTW...
 
rph72 said:
Just wondering why a lot of phones still get stolen. The IMEI can be easily un-blocked by criminals.
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It's not being unblocked, they change the IMEI #'s ;)

As noted by Turiko, he is 100% correct. And I personally think it hits the cellphone companies just as hard. Do you think they make more money from a stolen phone than actually selling a phone to that thief instead ;)

Crime is affecting everyone. The problem with cellphones is that the IMEI Auth is digital. Once it's changed there is no way the network will be able to pick that up. If we had to actually view the phone in person before every call that would have been a very different case :)

Sorry I misunderstood your post then :o
 
rph72 said:
Just wondering why a lot of phones still get stolen. The IMEI can be easily un-blocked by criminals.
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Easy, if you could easily change the IMEI, would that be an incentive to steal a top-of-the range phone or the phone you like? And what about syndicates that get "requests" for certain makes/models.

Until they can find a cheap means of serializing the handsets in a way that it cannot be changed i.e. laser etching the silicon die (which is currently extremely expensive and time-consuming to do) then we will sit with this problem.

Nokia have tried since the last decade to solve this problem, the trouble is the sweatshops have access to the unlocking tools and eventually people figure it out anyhow. Hackers are really smart people. The Nokia 5110, as old as it is, was supposed to be a secure platform in that changing any of the IC's on the board would render the phone inoperative, but let me tell you it was a piece of cake to circumvent, when someone gave me a phone as a gift and it was sim locked to MTN. I did it in 5 minutes and edited that EEPROM good :)
 
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