Polish charity gets huge phone bill thanks to stork

Post by sangnoir » Wed, Jul 04, 2018, 7:58 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #100

Symbiote wrote: post #12

"EcoLogic told the Super Express newspaper that somebody found the tracker in Sudan, removed the sim card and put it in their own phone, where they then racked up 20 hours' worth of phone calls" So they actually got a huge bill because they didn't set a SIM lock (if that's possible), and didn't block voice calls and so on. Presumably, they had a good contract for sending tiny packets of data, but not for roaming call…

A simlock works the other way around. It is to ensure that a subsidized phone does not end up being used for another carrier. It does not lock a SIM from being used in another device. You probably mean a pin code on the sim, but then you'd have to have a keyboard to enter the pin with and the device most likely did not come with such luxuries (nor a screen).

Post by xur17 » Wed, Jul 04, 2018, 8:00 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #35

pjc50 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideally you'd get a dedicated M2M MVNO operator who'll sell you a whole stack of them. If you just want one, you'll have to do a lot of price comparison; Three UK have some nice deals where you can use inclusive minutes/data in some non-EU countries as well as the standard EU free roaming.

Does anybody know of one that doesn't charge a monthly fee? I have a product idea where I'd like to use mobile data as a backup in case of wifi network failure. So I'm willing to pay a higher per-MB fee if I can avoid a monthly per-SIM fee.

Post by jfries » Wed, Jul 04, 2018, 8:12 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #103

sangnoir wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should have added a PIN then. There was a time when the practice of adding PINs to SIMs (and phones) was common in my part of the world (in the era of candy-bar phones) to prevent this exact scenario: so that losing your phone won't result in someone else racking a large bill using your phone and/or SIM. Perhaps their hardware and/or software doesn't support PIN unlocking the SIM, or they didn't consider the pos…

How would you enter the PIN?

Post by droopybuns » Wed, Jul 04, 2018, 8:21 PM UTC

Symbiote wrote: post #81

droopybuns wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sim locking is a device-side control that ensures only a specific carrier’s sim is used in the device. They should have used a limited IoT-oriented sim with data limits. I kinda feel these folks were extraordinarily naive, but I’m coming from the perspective of a telco SME.

I think I mean the PIN lock, the one you have to input after rebooting the phone or inserting the SIM. This has existed since the beginning of GSM, as far as I remember. But probably the GPS receiver can't work with that.

Post by sergiotapia » Wed, Jul 04, 2018, 8:32 PM UTC

lallysingh wrote: post #69

jnbiche wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're kidding, but you don't think that once word gets around some desperately poor region that tracker device == free phone calls, people aren't going to try and kill the bird to get the tracker? If you think that's not likely, you've got a lot more faith in humanity than I do.

Then they'll find that the Sim cards are locked and don't work, and will stop wasting their time on them.