There’s a group of unknown heroes who have banded together across social media platforms to fight the ridiculously high amounts South Africans pay for data.

The latest uproar surrounded the idea that data is disappearing for no reason.

So MyBroadband decided to do a test to put these claims to sleep.

They bought a prepaid SIM card for the most popular network providers, loaded each with a small amount of airtime, and placed them each in a different smartphone:

The smartphones were connected to the same Wi-Fi connection and the “mobile data” usage option in Android on all four devices was turned off.

All settings similar to Wi-Fi Assist or dynamic network switching were also disabled, as we wanted to ensure the smartphones did not establish a mobile data connection during the test.

On 11 July 2017, the prepaid SIM cards were installed in the smartphones and had the following airtime balances:

Vodacom – R12.00
MTN – R10.00
Telkom – R10.00
Cell C – R10.00

For a period of 11 days, no user actions which would have consumed airtime or data were performed. Mobile data was switched off, and their Wi-Fi connections were left on.

Here’s what happened:

While the airtime balances on the Vodacom, Telkom, and Cell C SIMs remained the same throughout the test, the airtime balance on the MTN SIM steadily decreased.

The MTN number also received daily SMSs from MTN warning that it was using out-of-bundle data – despite the mobile data option in Android being turned off.

The data usage monitor on the smartphone further showed that 0 bytes of mobile data had been used in the last 30 days.

The airtime balance on the MTN number exhibited strange behaviour, and would occasionally increase slightly before continuing to decrease.

The airtime balance of the MTN SIM decreased to:

R6.38 by 17 July
R4.60 by 21 July

The balances for each prepaid SIM on July 21 were:

Vodacom – R12.00
MTN – R4.60
Telkom – R10.00
Cell C – R10.00

After the same happened with a second MTN SIM, MyBroadband approached the network who acknowledged that “disappearing” data was a thing when a phone establishes an LTE connection:

[MTN] said the reason for the data usage, which caused the airtime balance to drop, was due to the devices establishing an LTE network connection.

The LTE connection charged a minimum tariff, despite the device’s mobile data being turned off.

“MTN would like to note that even though data was switched off, the smart devices used in the test consumed data when connecting to the LTE network, this is how LTE works,” said MTN.

“We can confirm that the depletion was due to Internet data traffic being channelled directly to the handset via LTE technology.”

“LTE is an always-connected technology, and as a result of LTE standards, any compatible device connecting to the LTE network receives an IP address.”

However, here’s some food for thought:

“These charges only occur when an LTE device, containing an LTE SIM card, is in an LTE coverage area. This affects less than 3% of our customer base and does not occur during any 3G or Edge data sessions,” said MTN.

So if there’s no LTE connection and your data is still disappearing, then what?

As a result of MyBroadband calling them out, MTN announced that:

“As a matter of priority, we are going to adjust our tariffs and align our data charging in LTE with our competitors. This will be implemented within the next 30 days,” said MTN.

Well done, MyBroadband, that’s one battle won.

But if it’s not the network providers involved in some dodgy tariffs, it’s scams taking our money.

You might have received a few calls from overseas numbers in the past month. According to MyBroadband, social media law specialist Emma Sadleir reported on Twitter that:

Someone just told me she called back a missed call from Guinea and got charged R780 for a few seconds!

MTN told MyBroadband that it’s a resurgence of “an old scam that originated in Japan known as Wangiri”:

Wangiri literally translates to “one and cut”, implying that the phone is allowed to ring once before cutting the call.

Computers randomly dial numbers and drop the calls in the hope that unsuspecting victims will return them, only to be billed at premium rates.

To prevent this? Stop returning calls to unknown overseas numbers, people!

Also, install TrueCaller. It’s an app which provides a block list of known spammers and scam callers.

Don’t worry, it’s all going to be OK.

[source:mybroadband]