albatross710
Established Member
- Joined
- May 15, 2004
- Posts
- 3,799
HI,
For the record I thought I write a quite summary of obtaining a local mobile number for South Africa.
1. I purchased a Vodacom SIM card from Pick n' Pay. Cost for the SIM was ZAR 0.95 about Au 15 cents. A passport is needed for the purchase (Don't leave it in the hotel safe like I did which needed a taxi ride back to the hotel to turnaround and go back to complete the purchase.)
2. At the point of purchase of the SIM card, also purchase Airtime. I purchased ZAR30. I mainly use it for booking my preferred taxi company. Each call for a booking is costing me about ZAR1.
3. To obtain the mobile number requires sending a text to their registration number in their manual. An SMS is returned. It contains the mobile number.
4. I went to a Vodacom store to purchase data plan. Data wasn't sold at the Pick n' Pay. I purchased 300MB for the week of mobile data. Also planning to use it for tethering the iPhone to my notebook. 300mb cost ZAR139. 175mb was ZAR119, AUD20 & AUD17.
Voice calls were easy to get working on the iPhone.
3G data has been another story. In between the three different Vodacom stores, 35 minutes on the phone to call centres and even a trip back to Pick n' Pay didn't get it working. For a while I even tried the (now redundant) requirement to use the APN changer. All to no available. Probably wasted 3-4 hours frigging around with it. Eventually I found a Vodacom dealer with some technical nous whom could understand that it was a network configuration issue not an 'Australian iphone relocation' issue. Basically it turns out that data configuration on their network takes ~24 hours after registration. Nothing needed to be done on the iPhone- just had to find the right person whom knew that.
Now that I have calls and data on tap for the duration of my trip of 7 days all for $25 I am pretty happy.
Alby
For the record I thought I write a quite summary of obtaining a local mobile number for South Africa.
1. I purchased a Vodacom SIM card from Pick n' Pay. Cost for the SIM was ZAR 0.95 about Au 15 cents. A passport is needed for the purchase (Don't leave it in the hotel safe like I did which needed a taxi ride back to the hotel to turnaround and go back to complete the purchase.)
2. At the point of purchase of the SIM card, also purchase Airtime. I purchased ZAR30. I mainly use it for booking my preferred taxi company. Each call for a booking is costing me about ZAR1.
3. To obtain the mobile number requires sending a text to their registration number in their manual. An SMS is returned. It contains the mobile number.
4. I went to a Vodacom store to purchase data plan. Data wasn't sold at the Pick n' Pay. I purchased 300MB for the week of mobile data. Also planning to use it for tethering the iPhone to my notebook. 300mb cost ZAR139. 175mb was ZAR119, AUD20 & AUD17.
Voice calls were easy to get working on the iPhone.
3G data has been another story. In between the three different Vodacom stores, 35 minutes on the phone to call centres and even a trip back to Pick n' Pay didn't get it working. For a while I even tried the (now redundant) requirement to use the APN changer. All to no available. Probably wasted 3-4 hours frigging around with it. Eventually I found a Vodacom dealer with some technical nous whom could understand that it was a network configuration issue not an 'Australian iphone relocation' issue. Basically it turns out that data configuration on their network takes ~24 hours after registration. Nothing needed to be done on the iPhone- just had to find the right person whom knew that.
Now that I have calls and data on tap for the duration of my trip of 7 days all for $25 I am pretty happy.
Alby
