Posted on July 21, 2008 - by Justin Hartman
Vodacom seem ready for iPhone 3G
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After upgrading my iPhone firmware it’s clear to me now that Vodacom’s iPhone network is alive and kicking.
I upgraded Colin’s iPhone on a Cell C network and none of the localisation functions had kicked in like it did on my Vodacom phone. The real bitch in all of this is that EDGE/GPRS doesn’t work on my iPhone while it does on Colin’s.
The new version 2.0 firmware no longer has a menu to set you APN key like on previous versions so I decided to see if I could manually change this in one of the preferences files on my iPhone. Look at what I discovered in the XML file:
The APN key has now been set by the network as iphone.vodacom.za and nothing I do can change this setting as it simply overwrites the string each time.
The result of this is that each time I try connect I get an error message saying “Could not activate cellular data network: You are not subscribed to a cellular data service”.
Seeing as Colin’s Cell C iPhone connects to EDGE without any problems I have to believe that Vodacom are going to enforce a data package subscription when the iPhone is officially launched in SA. I also bought a data bundle from Vodacom to see if this would work but I still get that pesky message.
The fact that my iPhone is completely localised, as opposed to Cell C’s network, is interesting to say the least. It’s a little scary though because as a Vodacom subscriber I can see I’m going to have problems with an unofficial iPhone down the line.
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July 24, 2008
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Having the exact same problem! Works fine on my mates MTN phone. When i put an MTN sim all of a sudden the APN settings pop up for me to edit.
damn looks like were blocked. gonna wait till the phone is realeased to see whats what! Damn!
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July 24, 2008
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Having the exact same problem! Works fine on my mates MTN phone. When i put an MTN sim all of a sudden the APN settings pop up for me to edit.
damn looks like were blocked. gonna wait till the phone is realeased to see whats what! Damn!
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July 24, 2008
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Hey Mike, great news! I figured it out.
On your iPhone V2 phone visit http://unlockit.co.nz
You will be presented with a form to add a custom APN, Username and Password. For Vodacom I set the APN to internet - not sure on MTN or the others.
Once you have the APN set on the site you then click “download custom config”. This will ask you to install a file which you should accept.
Once installed, EDGE and GPRS works perfectly.
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July 24, 2008
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Hey Mike, great news! I figured it out.
On your iPhone V2 phone visit http://unlockit.co.nz
You will be presented with a form to add a custom APN, Username and Password. For Vodacom I set the APN to internet - not sure on MTN or the others.
Once you have the APN set on the site you then click “download custom config”. This will ask you to install a file which you should accept.
Once installed, EDGE and GPRS works perfectly.
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July 25, 2008
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Thanks Man - ill try it. im assuming ill have to go to the site via WiFi
Cheers
Michael
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July 25, 2008
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Thanks Man - ill try it. im assuming ill have to go to the site via WiFi
Cheers
Michael
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July 25, 2008
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[...] Justin Hartman (Web Graphics /Development) Justin Hartman is the co-founder of the African news aggregator Afrigator.com and he’s the Digital Innovation manager at Avusa Media in South Africa. He’s also launched a number of web projects including Grabble, Nudjit and Webshots. [...]
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July 27, 2008
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July 27, 2008
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July 29, 2008
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Hi Justin,
I had a similar problem to this when I upgraded my iPhone over the weekend. Take a look on my blog by this afternoon (Tuesday 28 July, 08) - I’ll post the workaround that I used to get my EDGE and GPRS working on MTN and other prepaid services.
It takes a little bit of hackery… In short I followed a method similar to that mentioned in 2 above, except, that with my method I was able to ENABLE the Cellular Data connection tab under Networking that allows you to simply enter a custom APN and username.
You will have to have OpenSSH installed on your phone in order to do this.
In short, I got the carrier .plist file in the bundles folder, I edited it by adding a string that enables one to see the Cellular Data Network settings tab, FTP’d the updated PLIST file (which I will post for download on my blog) back to the phone, rebooted it, and viola, now each time I change my sim from Vodacom to MTN (and I assume CellC and Virgin) I simply update the APN and username and password as I used to on my 1.0.2 firmware.
Go to http://www.spirituality.org.za/blogger.html in a few hours, I’ll have it all up there.
Thanks!
Dion
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July 29, 2008
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Hi Justin,
I had a similar problem to this when I upgraded my iPhone over the weekend. Take a look on my blog by this afternoon (Tuesday 28 July, 08) - I'll post the workaround that I used to get my EDGE and GPRS working on MTN and other prepaid services.
It takes a little bit of hackery… In short I followed a method similar to that mentioned in 2 above, except, that with my method I was able to ENABLE the Cellular Data connection tab under Networking that allows you to simply enter a custom APN and username.
You will have to have OpenSSH installed on your phone in order to do this.
In short, I got the carrier .plist file in the bundles folder, I edited it by adding a string that enables one to see the Cellular Data Network settings tab, FTP'd the updated PLIST file (which I will post for download on my blog) back to the phone, rebooted it, and viola, now each time I change my sim from Vodacom to MTN (and I assume CellC and Virgin) I simply update the APN and username and password as I used to on my 1.0.2 firmware.
Go to http://www.spirituality.org.za/blogger.html in a few hours, I'll have it all up there.
Thanks!
Dion
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August 7, 2008
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Hi there
Many thanks for the custom profile APN settings above from http:/unlockit.co.nz (thanks Craig). I upgraded a few days back on a 2G iPhone to 2.0. It worked great with no problems at all, until I either used Wifi or restarted the phone. Since then, only Wifi works and EDGE/GPRS giving the error above.
Then tested with Cell C and EDGE worked, being an unofficial carrier allows you to manually configure the APN. Back to Vodacom and the menu disappears.
Thanks
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August 7, 2008
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Hi there
Many thanks for the custom profile APN settings above from http:/unlockit.co.nz (thanks Craig). I upgraded a few days back on a 2G iPhone to 2.0. It worked great with no problems at all, until I either used Wifi or restarted the phone. Since then, only Wifi works and EDGE/GPRS giving the error above.
Then tested with Cell C and EDGE worked, being an unofficial carrier allows you to manually configure the APN. Back to Vodacom and the menu disappears.
Thanks