I see a lot of conflicting information on this topic elsewhere, and Google’s not being very helpful today.
I’ll be arriving at Johannesburg Tambo early Sunday morning, and this time I don’t have the luxury of a company world-wide phone, so now I need a SIM chip.
I remember a couple of Vodafone and/or MTS stores in the arrival area, but I’m unsure of the requirements for getting a useful SIM chip there. I’ve read on various (old) sites:
[ul]
[li]I can buy a SIM but I can’t activate it.[/li][li]I can’t activate it without a passport and proof of physical address.[/li][/ul]
So my questions are
[ul]
[li]What’s the current process today in mid-2012 so that I can have a working SIM as soon as possible?[/li][li]Do I still need proof of a physical address?[/li][li]Do I need proof of South Africa physical address?[/li][li]Will proof of my foreign address suffice? (I think I have something in Chinese.)[/li][li]Will a printed reservation confirmation from Amex suffice?[/li][li]Are hotels used to this, and will print me a nice letter stating it’s my address?[/li][/ul]
I think the USA is the only place that’s harder to get a pre-paid SIM card!
I had this problem in Canada. Needed my phone not for phone calls but its GPS nav. Being in a new area it’s easy to get lost. What I ended up doing was getting a fido SIM. Only problem is to activate it online they wanted a Canadian address. Since I’m an American, this was a problem.
I tried:
using Best Buy’s address in Canada
the address of the motel
a made up address
the Canadian address for the North Pole
in a fit of desperation I looked up someone in the white pages with my exact name. Even that didn’t work. It knew somehow.
Finally, having a head full of stream of this really stupid restriction, I called up the company to bitterly complain. A polite gentleman answered, and it’s hard to chew out friendly people so I politely explained the situation instead. He did a little voodoo and activated the SIM with a prepaid cash card. American credit cards didn’t work with the system. About 20 minutes later my American phone was speaking Canadian GSM, and I finally had GPS nav back. Looked up my billing online and there’s a special address they use for address less customers they put in for me.
Might I suggest contacting a carrier down there and seeing if they have a work around?
The term to search for is RICA (Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act).
Under the act you need a valid ID, your passport will be fine, and proof of address. A quick search led me to a couple of sites that suggest that a letter from the hotel will satisfy the proof of address requirement.
Assuming the shop accepts your proof of address the process itself should be fairly straightforward, just fill in the form and the SIM should be activated at the shop.
I’ll ask around at the office and see if I can get a more concrete answer.
Hotel wrote back and indicated, don’t worry; they’ll simply help get me one at the hotel. (I hope the car has GPS, because I was counting on Google Maps working!)