An investigation by Analytico has revealed that data disappears from Cell C SIMs connected to a 4G network even when mobile data is disabled.
Analytico performed separate tests for disappearing airtime and data with SIMs from all four major network operators in South Africa.
The SIMs were inserted into identical Nokia 5 devices.
These devices run a near-stock version of Android and provide easy access to settings to disable mobile data use for all apps.
Mobile data use is also disabled for individual apps, and the devices are also connected to a stable Wi-Fi connection to provide alternative Internet access for any necessary services.
This latest test by Analytico shows that Vodacom may have made changes that prevent end users from being billed for internal signalling, as the Vodacom balance also remained constant for the whole period. Only the Cell C SIM lost data over ten days, while the rest of the SIMs kept their original balance.
Very interesting, as obviously Vodacom had a similar issue, but they seemed to have zero-rated their portion of the data. This is especially painful for the poorer subscribers, who can anyway only afford a little data.
See https://mybroadband.co.za/news/cellular/481827-data-worth-thousands-disappearing-from-cell-c.html
#technology #southafrica #CellC #mobiledata