Are you looking for information on how to reactivate your Vodacom SIM card? We have previously published an article in which we gave the timelines for SIM deactivation and number recycling on Vodacom in South Africa. So, assuming that your SIM has been suspended due to inactivity, is there a way of getting your number back? That’s question that a lot of people have been asking themselves.
Rules Relating to the Suspension of Numbers
We asked Vodacom, and the following is the information that they gave us regarding the suspension of SIM cards and recycling of numbers;
Vodacom suspends SIM cards that have not been used for 113 days. Afterwards, you still have a week in which you can have your number reactivated. However, on the 120th day of inactivity, your Vodacom number gets deleted and recycled.
How to Reactivate a Suspended Vodacom Number
The question here is, is it possible to reactivate a suspended Vodacom SIM? The answer is a conditional yes. If your SIM has been suspended after 113 days and before the 120th day, you can reach out to Vodacom and they will reactivate the number.
However, once you have gone beyond 120 days, you can no longer reactivate a Vodacom SIM. That’s because the number will already have been reallocated.
Why is there an issue of numbers being suspended?
For some reasons, there is this problem of SIMs being deactivated and numbers being recycled in South Africa. From the point of view of the networks, it makes sense to repossess any number that may not be in use.
Any number that not being used is a potential loss in revenue. Not that there is a shortage of numbers. But all networks in the country have different durations after which they automatically numbers that are not being used.
We have previously discussed MTN and the amount of time that you have before such a step is taken. So, this is a universal feature within South Africa. If you do not use your SIM within a given time period, the number will be suspended and recycled. Hence you are here looking at how to reactivate your Vodacom Sim card.
But the real reason why so many numbers end up being suspended is that South Africans are a crafty lot. If you ask anyone today, they will tell you that they have 2 or 3 SIM cards from different networks. The aim is to take advantage of all those promotions that are constantly being run by these networks.
You may not have realized this, but there is a huge disparity between the number of people in South Africa and the number of SIM cards that are in use. Check the subscriber numbers to find out what we are talking about. What it simply means is that most people have more than one SIM.
Summary: How to Reactivate a Vodacom SIM
Anyway, that’s how to reactivate a Vodacom sim card. In this article, we noted that Vodacom suspends SIM cards after 113 days of inactivity. After that, you have a week in which you can have your SIM reactivated. But if you go beyond the 7 days, your number will be recycled. It will be given to somebody else. Once that is done, it will be impossible to get your number back.
If you have further questions, leave them as a comment below or post them on our Forum. The SA Broadband Forum has experts who spend ready to help you in every possible way.