Inexpensive GPRS/3G data access in South Africa

[growler]

Just got back from South Africa. I was counting on WIND (30 Euros/15 Megabyte) to provide me data access, but, because I had 0.00 Euros in my account for too long, I wasn't able to recharge my WIND account with an O2 recharge card when I was in London.

In South Africa, I was able to pickup a GPRS plan from Vodacom that came out to 2 Rand/Megabyte of data. That works out to ~3.5 MB of data transfer for 1 US dollar. To the best of my knowledge, this is *only* useable in South Africa and so don't expect to roam outside of the country with this card. The pamphlet that had a brief on data access had indicated that it would work on their EDGE/HSDPA network that's available in the more populated area.

So this is what I did:
a) Purchase a Vodacom 4U prepaid SIM card http://www.vodacom.co.za/pkgcr.do?ac...8&packageId=19. I obtained this for 50 Rand at one of the local cell phone shops. It comes precharged with 44 Rand credit and of course gives you a local South Africa cell phone number. And, as expected all incoming voice calls to the cellphone number are free. Active the SIM card by calling "100".
b) Call the toll free customer service line (they all speak English) at "100" or "111" (sorry can't recall which one I called) and ask them to enable GPRS access.
c) Because I wanted GPRS access so that I could have email/internet access on my PDA and laptop, the dialup string I used was "at+cgdcont=1,"ip","internet". Leave out the quotes. As you may note, the access point (APN) is the word 'internet' as indicated in the dialup string.
d) Dial *99***1#. Though I normally leave the username/password blank when dialing up, entering a username didn't affect me from connecting. A CSR had indicated that if *99***1# didn't work, try *99#.

That's it. Because I had my PDA/laptop setup to use my cellphone and the WIND card, I only had to change the APN in the dialup string to get it to work.

As for cellphone connectivity, I had to use my Ericsson T39m to use the Vodacom data network. My Audiovox SMT5600 wouldn't function with the card once GPRS access was enabled. Strange, because, it did before I enabled GPRS access. Lastly, the Ericsson is a 900/1800/1900 Mhz while the SMT5600 is a 850/1800/1900MHz phone. I noticed that the T39m would have a signal in the big cities, the outskirts of the big cities, and in the rural areas. If your phone doesn't support 850Mhz, you will be limited to having it work only in the major metropolis.

As for recharging your account, many retailers including drug stores, small shops etc. cell vouchers to recharge your phone so finding one isn't an issue. They sell them at 29R, 55R, etc. See http://www.vodacom.co.za/pkgcr.do?ac...eId=2&pageId=7

[meir]

Virgin Mobile ZA has prepaid data even cheaper R 0,50 per MB see link https://www.virginmobile.co.za/virgi...repaidPostpaid