By Matt Loney, 1 November 2005 15:40
NEWS
An investigation by silicon.com's sister site ZDNet UK has exposed the massive roaming charges levied by mobile phone operators on users who download data when abroad.
Data services are increasingly being promoted by mobile phone operators, letting users connect to their corporate email and browse the web even when they're away from a fixed internet connection.
When used in the UK, these data services are usually covered by monthly subscriptions, but those who use data services on a pay-as-you-go basis can get a nasty surprise and this can include contract customers when they travel abroad.
Charges of up to £20 per megabyte mean that it can cost 24p just to view Google's famously light front page over GPRS or 3G data services from abroad and that is before users have even searched for the information they need and incurred a series of much higher charges as they navigate through destination pages.
A download of a single iTunes track could cost up to £100. One ZDNet UK reader found himself lumped with a bill for £769 for using Orange's data services in France and Germany to download around 80Mb. The same usage in the UK would have cost under £10.
Although Orange is the worst offender, all mobile phone networks charge disproportionately high rates for roaming.
The problem is compounded in many cases by a lack of clear information from the operators. Some users who use 3G data cards in their notebook PCs are not provided with any form of metering to tell them how much the services are costing in real time. In these cases, users will not know what they are being charged until they receive their bill, which can easily be six or seven weeks later more than enough time for them to have run up even higher charges.
ZDNet UK asked the operators whether they would warn a user if they suddenly incurred huge costs due to using data services abroad, but at the time of publishing this story none had responded.
ZDNet UK's investigation also found that none of the operators make the roaming data charges easy to find on their websites. A search on Vodafone's site for its roaming charges used 545.2Kb (including a download of the PDF file that held the pricing information) which would have cost over £5 from abroad at the company's standard charge of £10 per megabyte, or £3 if under a roaming deal with one of its partners.Matt Loney writes for ZDNet UK
Comments
There are 12 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
This is a major case of rip-off Britain.
I deal with the mobiles for our business for both UK and Belgium based employees.
For the UK phones we get stuck with huge roaming costs. For the ones in Belgium their contract allows them to roam through out the EU (including the UK) without additional cost.
Unfortunately the Service Provider (we use the same one in the UK as in Belgium) got wise to our attempts to source the UK mobiles via our Belgian office.
2. Sam Critchley
Well said! I live in the Netherlands and have an Orange subscription. At home, I pay €3 per MB (which I consider quite expensive anyway), but when I roam this price goes up to €15 per MB!
I'm a telecoms engineer/consultant, and I can tell you there's no technical reason on Earth why roaming data should cost so much.
I've now bought an Orange pay-as-you-go SIM for use when I come to the UK - they charge £1/MB for GPRS if you buy the right bundle, and have a "24 hours unlimited GPRS for £1" add-on as well. I don't get why pay-as-you-go GPRS data in the UK is cheaper than subscription GPRS data in NL, but there you go. It's still way too expensive.
3. David Barrow
I have had problems with Vodafone for the past 5 years concerning downloading of data abroad. One of the problems has been that you are charged £1 each time the phone connects to the GPRS service - even if no data is downloaded. With some handsets, that don't hold the GPRS connection, this 'connection fee' starts to get expensive and this is before the actual data charges come into play. Specifically Vodafone's website is misleading with regard to their charging of data use whilst roaming and nowhere mentions and connection fee. It just shows the price per Mb. In addition there is also a minimum amount of data each time - and this is not explained but could be 100Kb. The biggest issue is with the customer 'service' who have absolutely no clue about data charging - at home or abroad. The reason I stay with Vodafone is that at least their calls to customer service are free.
I don't believe that the other operators are any better. They are all in for a hard time if they continue to promote data as a big deal - once customers get their first bills, they won't be so keen to continue downloading data.
4. anonymous
This appears to be yet another delibarate rip-off. The intentions of the operators are made all the more sinister by their failure to respond to any of the questions they've been asked.
This sort of thing reduces the likelihood of new technologies ever being fully embraced by everyday users.
5. Simon Morgan
All roaming charges are a rip-off. Until the Regulator clamps down we will just have to pay through the nose. Buy a SIM for the country you are going to stay in to get a better deal.
6. Hugh Turner
According to the Virgin mobile site, their charges are 0.3p /Kb in the UK and 0.5p /Kb elsewhere.
http://www.virginmobile.com/mobile/services/abroad/paymonthly/tariff_coverage.jsp
7. David Supple
We have one senior user of 3G get a monthly bill of £950 on a Vodaphone 3G card!! These companies are milking these types of connections as quickly as they can before the charges are investigated...
8. anonymous
I have to agree, there are some fierce hidden charges when roaming.
a) I was once charged £50 in one day (because it is £5 per megabyte on vodafone when roaming). It was early January last year and I was in a remote-ish place and I wanted to catch up on the events surrounding the Tsunami using ITN News! My total bill that month was £300 and I am on a contract.
b) For those of you rushing to use Vodafone Passport, which happily connects you back to the UK and allows you to accept calls from the UK for the princely sum of 75p per connection. And there's the rub, per connection. If somebody calls you from the UK whilst you skiing the White Rabbit in Val d'Isere and you choose not to take the call, it will still cost you 75p when they get diverted to your voicemail. On one particular day I had 20-odd incoming calls that I chose to reject, it still cost me £15. Solution? If you are on Vodafone Passport, turn your voicemail off if you are roaming.
9. Kiernan Wagstaff
How about a simple end to roaming charges... where a mobile company has an agreement or is owned by a foriegn provider (that would be 4 out of 5 then) then surely the roaming charge can be that operators standard rate for a call in their own country. the operators are already getting paid for calls in this country from the users contract and calls to that mobile from anywhere in the UK attract a charge to the uk mobile and then a charg for the mobile abroad..paying twice for one service!
10. Mike Warner
Good report to highlight a dubious practice - a complicated pricing policy, with too many "if's and but's" clearly intended to make extortionate profit from unwitting customers. Indeed, I was charged by Orange £140 for downloading 16Gb data on a trip through various European countries. My normal 4Gb doenload in one month costs £4. Where is the transparency in this charging policy? Until this is situation is resolved by the mobile operators 3G and the future of serious mobile freedom will be an expensive flop and mobile communications will not live up to, or beyond expectations.
11. Steve Hodson
The only safe assumption is that if you can't find the cost easily then it is exorbitant. Assume as a default that they are trying to rip you off and avoid using theyr service without clear published tariffs
12. Paul Cook
I've just been hit by a bill that is 10 times my normal bill, presumably because my machine decided to download a couple of windows updates whilst I was online. The technology to warn me would be simple and prevent fraud, I find it worrying that they would allow my bill to get so high. I feel I'm personally paying for the amount they've paid for their 3g license!