"Never Trust a Phone Company That Makes Fridges"

Deon Meyer is a great author, and in his latest thriller, "Cobra", he has some interesting throw-away comments about smart phones. The first one deals with Samsung becoming "the new Illuminati and taking over the world".

This comment is made by a cop with an opinion about everything. I laughed out loud when I heard it on the audio book, and then looked it up on Google Books for the screen shot shown here. Does the comment "Never trust a phone company that makes fridges" apply to Hisense as well as Samsung? I wonder ...

Tyrone is a pickpocket in the novel. He keeps and uses the Windows phone because it has zero resale value and because he stole it anyway, but he won't pay for a replacement one, even though the money was stolen. Microsoft definitely has a marketing problem: "Nobody wants a Windows phone". And Microsoft used to be really good at marketing. Nokia too, until they started making unreliable phones. My last one is only 18 months old and it reboots at random.

My So-Called "Dual SIM" Hisense Phone

I have had a love-hate relationship with my Hisense HS-U970 phone. It's my first smartphone, and so I have enjoyed all the toys and goodies that come with Android. But it has also been a monumental disappointment in one crucial respect: it claims to be a "Dual Sim" phone. It isn't. It's a one-and-a-half sim phone.
If you look at the photo above, you can see it has slots for 2 sim cards, but only one of those slots is capable of 3G data. Nowhere on the Hisense product page or the press release or the Kalahari or Takealot pages does it say anything about this. Neither does the box:

The official Hisense product page claims under "Network" that the phone is "Dual SIM card, dual standby (HSPA/WCDMA/GSM)" and the press release waxes lyrical about how "Prime 1 has dual SIM capabilities, allowing users to simultaneously run two SIM cards from different accounts and networks off a single mobile device." But that's where the hype and the truth diverge. Badly. Sure, there are 2 sim card slots, and each of them can take a sim card, but only one of the slots has (HSPA/WCDMA/GSM) capability. The other slot is GSM only. That means it can do voice, sms messages, and EDGE internet data. EDGE can carry a bandwidth up to 236 kbit/s under ideal circumstances. In practice it's closer to 64k-128kbps.
HSPA provides peak data rates of up to 14 Mbit/s in the downlink and 5.76 Mbit/s in the uplink, twice that of WCDMA. So the difference between HSPA and EDGE is significant: HSPA is theoretically 60 times faster than EDGE. So its not the kind of detail that should be overlooked on a product description (see screen shot below). In my case the problem was even worse, because the phone was faulty and it would not accept my MTN sim card in slot 2 at all. A visit to the Hisense stand at Decorex convinced me that my phone was faulty, because their stand phone (the same model and software version) would accept each sim card in either slot. Not even a factory reset of my phone would fix the problem.

Here is a screen shot of my Telkom Mobile/8ta data connection speed when it is plugged in to slot 2 and only able to connect using EDGE. Not exactly awe inspiring. The same sim card in a USB modem gets excellent speed from the same location (my desk).
Hisense is a multinational company based in China, and the Chinese are notorious for poor quality control, so I knew there was a risk when I bought the phone. But still, I paid R2000 for the phone, so I expect the thing to work as advertised. Unfortunately Hisesnse are lying about the capabilities of the phone. They omit to mention to their prospective buyers that you can select between sim cards, but only one sim card will give you good internet speeds. The other one gives you v-e-r-y s-l-o-w internet speeds.
Note to Hisense PR department: lying by omission is still lying.The box says "HSPA High Speed Internet Acces", not "HSPA High Speed Internet Acces on slot 1 only". It should.
It's only when you open the box and insert two sim cards that you find out that one slot is GSM (good for voice and sms messages) and the other slot is good for voice, sms and data. If you are only going to use the internet for WhatsApp chatting and so on, then slot 2's internet will probably suffice. But don't expect your phone to work properly on the Internet.

The other problem I had with my phone was that whenever the signal strength went below 2 bars (as measured on my old Nokia phone) the Hisense phone lost connection completely. "No Service" it said. This happens in the gym change room (where other users on other phones could make and take calls), in Cresta shopping centre, and in my own office at home. In all these places I have not encountered any problems with the same sim card in my Nokia phone. I will wait and see what happens with the replacement phone.
Update Thuesday 4pm: The courier company has collected the faulty phone for return to Kalahari.com. Waybill no 600684278. In the meantime I am back to using my cranky 18 month old Nokia phone. At least it gets decent reception, even if it reboots at random.
Update Friday: I found a post on Google Plus for a Spanish retailer:

New Arrival @Select Mobiles
Hisense U970 Smartphone
------------------------------------
• Model: HS-U970
• Sim: Dual Sim card
• Display: 5.0 inches TFT Capacitive touch screen
• Platform: Android v4.2 Jelly Bean
• Processor: Quad Core 1.2GHz CPU MTK6589
• Ram: 1GB RAM,4GB internal & expandable up to 32GB
• Camera: 8.0MP autofocus LED flash rear & VGA front camera
• Network: GSM/EDGE 900/1800/1900; WCDMA/HSDPA/HSUPA 900/2100MHz GPS: GPS/AGPS
• Connectivity: USB:Micro USB
• Wifi:802.11b/g/n
• Bluetooth: Bluetooth 3.0 EDR
• Sensors: Proximity sensor,Ambient light sensor,G-sensor
• Audio: Headphone: 3.5mm headset connector
• Additional features: MMS,Email,Push Email,Wi-Fi hotspot
• Battery: 2000mAh
• Dimension: 142 x 73.2 x 9.4mm
• Weight: 144g

It seems to me that Hisense global is not being entirely honest about the capabilities of their phones. Deliberately ambiguous specifications are deliberately dishonest.
Update Friday 22nd August: A month after buying the (faulty) phone, I have been told that Kalahari will refund me the full price within 5-7 working days. This is getting ridiculous. On top of that the marketing geniuses at Hisense have asked me to remove my blog post. They really don't "get it", nor do they understand the outrage of a customer who was sold a device that doesn't work, and can't work as advertised.
Update Friday 29th August: The refund from Kalahari finally came through. That was not a good buying experience. Fortunately we have had better experiences with them in the past, so we will be buying books from them in the future. And they can't be blamed for the poor quality control at Hisense.
Update Friday 5th August: I've had the new phone for a week and it seems to be working correctly, except for the slow speed on the second SIM. I'll post a review in a few days.

How to Steal from MTN Cell Phone Subscribers

How Admob, MTN, Nokia, Opera Telecom, Go Go Mobile and Morvec are stealing money from my phone account.
These telecoms guys have an interesting new definition of the word "permission"; and it violates all ethical norms and codes of conduct. But that never stopped these companies from making a quick buck before.
I have finally figured out how it works, and how they "caught" me before. I remember on the day of the IPL Cricket final going to m.espncricinfo.com, the mobile site for CricInfo, to see what time the match would start. The site was overloaded, and very slow. I vaguely remember clicking on a display ad by mistake. It's an easy enough mistake to make, given how slow the graphics were loading. It was right at the top of the page, and I had scrolled down further already, but the cursor obviously hadn't moved yet. When this advert page appeared, I selected "back" and continued.
It turns out that purely by viewing this page, R14 was deducted from my phone account every 3 days until I noticed. I did not have to click any buttons, or agree to any pricing, or even be aware of what they were selling, if anything. Think of it as the virus of Internet display ads.
Last night I decided to retrace my steps, and see what happened. Using the built-in browser on my Nokia phone, I loaded up m.cricinfo.com and selected the "Live" cricket match. In this case it was England vs Sri Lanka. At the top and bottom of the page is a banner ad (from admob.com) that says: "Fun Mobile Videos Click Here". There is no indication of any cost involved before you click, and once you have clicked on the link the web site gets the MSISDN (subscriber) number from the phone. I have no idea whether the privacy geniuses at Nokia or MTN decided to give away my identity online in this fashion, but there you have it: it gets used for fraud without the phone owner's knowledge or explicit permission.
Later on, you might get a message from the robbing party informing you how to cancel your subscription, but by then the first amount has already been deducted. If the MTN network doesn't deliver the SMS, then that's just too bad. On 21st May I got no such message, so Morvec just kept deducting money until 7th June, by which time all my airtime was exhausted.
Last night I got a message after I clicked on the ad, and sent the "STOP" message immediately, but not soon enough for the MTN call centre to tell me today that another R14 had been deducted from my phone. So much for telling Opera not to subscribe me ever again. I guess they just aren't prepared to listen. According to the Morvec email I got:

Your cell number clicked on one of our banners via the mobile Internet and then accepted the terms and conditions [of] our wap page. Your number is automatically passed to us when you click on our Join button by the Mobile Networks.

Never mind that there is no "Join button" on the ad to click on. The text of the ad reads:

Scroll down & CLICK THE BUTTON RIGHT NOW & join the FUN!!
ENTER HERE
Bringing u great Games, Videos and more & great value, wallpapers and Screensavers cost jusr R10, Videos R25, Mobile Games R28! This is a subscription service charged at a minimum of ONLY R14 every 3 days which you can use to buy EXTRA content EVERY TIME - CLICK NOW ....
If billing is unsuccessful, retries for this billing cycle will be retried at discounted amounts and potentially on different days, by joining the service you are providing your explicit permission for this to happen. Cellmates has requested that your mobile number be made available.
By clicking Enter Here you confirm that you are joining the CellMates Club
For HELP please call 0800982175 or email themobclub@ymail.com - sms STOP to 31927 or 31848 at any time to end
Terms [sic]

What is interesting is that even when you don't click on the graphic and link Opera still steal your money. I suspect this is because the "subscription server" also displays the graphic, and therefore gets the cell number without explicit permission.
Surely the legitimate, legal and ethical way is to actually have a "Join" button that you would have to click on, that would initiate an SMS message to my phone, which would then require me to send the word "JOIN" to their servers? Of course it would! But these guys aren't ethical or honest enough to do that. They deduct first, dodge questions later, knowing that they can rip off a large section of the public without their knowledge. It would also be great if MTN would allow me to block these deductions, but since they get a cut, why should they bother about minor details such as breaking the law?

Update Monday 20th June: This is getting weird. Even though I displayed the above ad 3 times on my phone, and within the hour thereafter had R14 deducted from my phone account, "The Mob Club" (how ironic) sent me the following message:

We understand your frustration, however, the Go Go Mobile service that you have been charged for is in no way associated with our company and service. We suggest that you contact the provider of the service directly on the 0800 number they have provided.
We do buy advertising through Admob so on some occasions you will see adverts for our service and on other occasions adverts for services unrelated to our company, which is clearly what has happened in this instance. Our service is fully compliant with all regulations - before you join the service it clearly states the price, it displays information on how to unsubscribe and it has our full contact details. If you DO NOT click on the 'Enter Here' button to confirm your subscription you will NEVER be charged by our service.
Please remove any reference to our service from this web page since we are not associated with the service you are complaining about. Please confirm when this will be done.

I checked the 31927 short code mentioned by The Mob Club and it is run by: Opera Telecoms. So perhaps Opera should fix up their clearly broken system.

Update Tues 21st June: After The Mob Club (what an unfortunate name) protested their innocence, I displayed their Admob ad again, and checked the balance on my phone. No deduction. Interesting. I am waiting for answers from them and Morvec and of course Opera, but I'm not holding my breath. Perhaps MTN can help. I'm due to meet with them at lunchtime. So far R70 has been deducted from my phone account this month, which is over 70% of my monthly airtime.

I also called "Go Go Mobile" on 0800992230 and the loser on the other end refused to tell me their address over the phone. They claim to be members of WASPA, but aren't listed as such on the WASPA web site. They weren't particularly helpful or forthcoming, although they did promise to investigate. What are they trying to hide?

Update 4pm: I had a 45 minute meeting with 5 helpful executives at the MTN Innovation Centre today. It seems that MTN is planning some tools in future to help customers deal with these annoyances. Many thanks to Bridget Bhengu for arranging things. MTN are investigating my "subscription woes" and will be in touch shortly.

Update 22nd June: Paul Barrat from Morvec phoned me to offer a R100 airtime voucher, but then tried to slip in a "full and final settlement" clause. I'm not that stupid. Just because you put the stolen cookies back in the cookie jar doesn't mean they weren't stolen in the first place.
Update Friday 24th June: That "refund" Paul offered me has still not arrived. And Opera is getting a lot of complaints on HelloPeter too: 233 unhappy customers in the last year. Opera didn't learn from WASPA complaint #6868 where they were fined heavily. I hope they are fined heavily again, because they could go to jail if charged with fraud and theft. Maybe that's why they tried the "full and final settlement" con.

Saturday 25th June: The Mob Club is getting jumpy about their name being associated with this post. Yet they continue to do business with the company that stole my money, and they refuse to proovide me with any details about who they (the Mob Club) are. Why? What are they hiding? Seems like they aren't much different from the rest after all.

We think it would be far better to remove all references to 'The Mob Club' from your blog, not just strike them out, all you have done is visit our service terms and conditions landing page, you have never been subscribed or billed by our service. Frankly we don't like our service named under a headline of 'stealing money'.
Content services use URLs whitelisted by the networks so you may well see many very similar URLs for different services despite the providers behind them having absolutely nothing to do with each other.
We generally have no problem sharing company details at all, but we've never billed you nor have you ever been a member of our services so have no reason to give out this information especially as your original complaint seems to be evolving, again we have absolutely no involvement in it all other than you navigated to one of our services terms and conditions landing pages via banner ads on the mobile Internet and we would rather be left alone and associations no longer made as there is nothing at all contentious relating to us.
So what would be really fair is for you to remove references to us as there is no reason for us to appear on your blog and then we can all move forward.
We hope you manage to resolve your complaint successfully.
Thanks,
Helpdesk.

Well, [un]Helpdesk, I think the best way you can disassociate yourself from the bad apples of the industry is to stop doing business with the likes of scum like Opera Interactive. Then maybe you won't be so embarassed about who you are. But with a name like "The Mob Club" you clearly have no idea.

The phone is in the washing machine. Not good

Mobile phone design has still got a long way to go: why are they damaged by water so easily? I left my phone in my trouser pockets and then put the trousers in the washing machine. After about 20 minutes my wife rescued it and we left it to dry out for a few days. In the meantime I needed a phone.
I found one from a most unlikely source: the Game store in Cresta. Their shop "assistants" are usually noted for their surely disinterest, but this time I managed to find someone who could help, and R760 later I had a smart new Nokia 5130 XpressMusic phone. Unfortunately it has some built-in Vodacom features, but still works fine on the MTN network. Of course MTN were unable to help, being either "out of stock" or the queues were too long. It took a few tries to get the MMS and WAP settings, but I persevered and I'm back on the phone network.
As a laptop owner I really don't see all the fuss over smartphones, as this phone plays podcasts and audio books well, has 2GB of MicroSD storage, and can make calls, and send text messages. It even has an Opera browser although the screen is tiny. It's still good enough for getting the cricket scores though. And it's about 15% of the cost of a smartphone.
Update Wednesday: Now that the phone has dried out it seems to be working, although the screen flickers a bit. I retrieved all my data from the phone, including some cotacts I had lost. I guess the "old" one (8 months of use) is going to get relegated to being a "standby" phone because the 5130 does a better job of playing music files, even though it is half the price. Weird.

Our Soccer Trip to Rustenburg

Click on the image for more details

This is a composite picture stitched together by Windows Live Photo Gallery from a dozen or so photos taken on my new Nokia 6303i phone. I took them at half time in the England-USA match at Royal Bafokeng Stadium on 12th June 2010. The match was a 1-1 draw, and quite exciting. There was a great atmosphere in the crowd, spoilt only by the insane loudness of the Vuvuzelas. Fortunately we had good earplugs so we managed to preserve our hearing and not get a headache either.
The inset on the left shows a picture of a modified Vuvuzela that has to be the longest I've ever seen. The inset on the right is Penny doing her best to drink a Badweiser beer. If you look at the details of the picture you'll notice how many VIP seats are empty/unsold, and you can also see the non-functional TV screens on the left and right of the stadium.
In spite of the deafening noise, the overpriced beer and not being able to see the replays, we had a great time. Everyone was in a good mood, and even though the US fans were completely outnumbered, their shouts of "U-S-A U-S-A" could be heard above the din, and made the mood pretty festive.
The US team played well, but didn't seem to be able to finish off their attempts at goal. They were very sporting, and acknowledged their fans at the end of the match. I'm glad I supported them and hope they go on to the next round, even if their home country has no idea how well they did.
Logistics have never really been a strong point in South Africa, and the official FIFA web sites provided no useful information on how to get to the stadium. The map in the fan booklet is laughably bad. But there is a great graphic and information provided by the "Royal Bafokeng Nation" web site. I printed it out and it is shown behind the tickets (above). As it turned out the route to Sun City is well marked, and in combination with the directions to our hotel, we arrived safely and on time to check in at the hotel.
A very helpful lady from the Rustenburg Accommodation and Tourism Association suggested we try the Sundown Ranch Hotel. I'm glad we did. The cost of the stay at the hotel was less than the cost of a single FIFA ticket. And it included breakfast for two. Fortunately we didn't have to pay for the tickets (thanks to MTN who gave two to a friend of ours) and we have avoided buying anything with the FIFA logo on it, except for the food and drinks at the stadium.

Goodbye iPod Shuffle, hello Nokia 3120 Classic phone

Today my iPod Shuffle 1GB model finally died with a "write error", meaning that the crappy flash memory has failed at a critical location, so the iPod software won't work. I doubt very much whether it can be fixed, but it may be worth a try.
I bought the 1GB model as a backup for the 512kb model that I use with my OtterBox, a waterproof device that cost twice as much as the iPod itself, but which allows me to listen to music when I'm swimming. It cuts down on the boredom of swimming training and makes it fun to swim lengths, particularly to dance music classics.
I have stopped using the iPod for listening to podcasts or audio books, because my cell phone can do that. It's a basic model Nokia 3120 Classic, but with the extra USB cable attached and a 2GB MicroSD memory card, it works better than the iPod Shuffle, and pauses the audio book when I receive a call.
Now I don't have to have two sets of earphones, nor do I have to pay Apple any more money for their overpriced products. They have never allowed South African customers to buy music from the iTunes store, which has always annoyed me. I would rather pay Nokia for some accessories that make my phone more usable.
The phone is better in other ways too: it doesn't lose its place when pausing audio books (Apple refused to fix that bug), it has a speaker so I don't have to use earphones, it includes a radio and camera, and it is included with my basic phone contract, so I can keep my phone costs down. Less clutter in my pockets and round my neck too.