Many consumers have reported that their airtime and mobile data are disappearing, and that it is not in line with what they use. For instance, some time back in South Africa hundreds of cellular subscribers contacted Talk Radio 702 to complain about a phenomenon dubbed “data leakage”. Many smartphone users have complained about airtime and mobile data disappearing from their accounts, despite not accessing the Internet or apps. Apps running in the background, which are consuming data, are a common culprit. Additionally, features such as Wi-Fi Assist can cause you to automatically switch to mobile data when you have a poor Wi-Fi connection. To test if data or airtime “disappearing” was a genuine issue on local mobile networks, MyBroadband bought and registered new prepaid SIMs from MTN, Vodacom, Cell C, and Telkom, and conducted an investigation.
New SIMs- Each prepaid SIM was loaded with a small amount of airtime via an online banking app and placed in a Samsung Galaxy S7 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
No user actions which would have consumed airtime or data were performed. The smartphones remained powered on with their mobile data switched off, and their Wi-Fi connections on, for a period of 11 days. Airtime balances were recorded regularly throughout the test.
Disappearing airtime- What happened during the test was truly surprising. 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.
3 Comments
Such thing as happen to me not once not twice despite the fact that my background apps have been disabled not to see data. Airtime will just vanished due to some useless pop-up message which one did not subscribed for and your airtime will not be refund. It is well.
This is a serious issue. Government should step into this too. Network providers are cheating on their customers by stealing their monies! This is unfair! Government needs to put up some very strict regulations and measures in place in other to checkmate this evil.
Hmmmm….. Interesting research