Lenovo Mobile Access – Deactivated

I have a Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2, which I bought with the 3G capability, and it came with a Lenovo SIM card linked to Lenovo’s Mobile Access Service.

For the majority of the time, the Tablet is connected to the Internet via WiFi, but occasionally, I use the Lenovo Mobile Access service and buy internet access when travelling outside of WiFi hotspots.

As a trip is coming up, I tried to connect via LMA a few days ago to check that everything was working. However, the connection failed – see the screenshot with the “internal error during processing” message.

I put in a support request via email, and was astonished to receive a reply today telling me that since I had not used the service during the last six months, my SIM card had been deactivated and I would need to buy a new one.

I don’t recall seeing anything about this time limit in the documentation I received with my tablet, and there is nothing about it on the LMA web site that I can see. Indeed, the web site says, and I quote:

There are no contracts and no long-term commitments.

They seem to have overlooked the salient fact that there is a long-term commitment – you need to use the service at least once every six months to avoid having your SIM card deactivated.

Needless to say, I am not impressed. I will NOT be buying a new SIM card, since it costs more than purchasing a pre-paid SIM card from, for example, Vodafone NL – and their SIM cards do not deactivate themselves after six months.

I won’t be using the LMA service again.