Shocked! Charges for Wifi abroad from Orange

BaritoneUK

Most Smartphones have a setting that you can get it to not use data whilst roaming. However, to be honest, I don't really trust them. you can gets Apps that stop your phone from using 3G when roaming. However, the best way in future is to phone up your network operator and ask them to switch off data because your going abroad. then they can't slam you when your back...

Badger_Lady

Thanks for the help on TomTom (and apologies for hijacking - it wasn't my intention!).

I had purchased the Western Europe version of the TomTom app, some 6 months before heading abroad. The file is huge - about 5GB of my 8GB iPhone is swallowed up by it. So I'd be very disappointed if that didn't include the necessary maps! And of course, from the link JJEgan kindly posted:

Detailed and up-to-date maps

A full and up-to-date map is stored on your iPhone or iPod touch. No cellular signal or data plan is required to browse your map and navigate to your destination.

BaritoneUK, I spoke to Orange before I left and they told me they weren't able to do anything their end - they instead gave me instructions for turning off data roaming on my handset. But TomTom complained and asked me to switch it back on again before it would work.

I can't explain what happened, only what I experienced whilst abroad. Maybe there was a way of telling TomTom to shut up and get on with it, and maybe my high charges were solely down to having data roaming switched on while various apps greedily swallowed it up. All I know is I spent a whole week navigating my sister from village to village using a printed Google map because we were too scared to switch the phone on!

martindow

Isn't there a cap of 50 Euros on roaming charges in Europe? Or did the OP over ride this?

Humphrey10

Badger_Lady wrote: »

BaritoneUK, I spoke to Orange before I left and they told me they weren't able to do anything their end - they instead gave me instructions for turning off data roaming on my handset. But TomTom complained and asked me to switch it back on again before it would work.

I have TomTom Western Europe as well, and it works fine with Mobile Data turned off. TomTom does complain when it is opened that Mobile Data is off, but if you just click Cancel on the pop up it will still work (it will be a bit less accurate if I understand how it work correctly, but it will still work).

You don't need to contact your mobile operator, just turn mobile data off on the phone - not just the data roaming option.

jayme1

if you buy tomtom uk maps then you cannot have any other countries maps at all because you havent paid for it. in order to get europes maps you have to pay for europe maps, they will not download OTA at all.

OP google maps uses a ton of data (I can easily use 50MB+ in about 3 mins of using it) so that is where your data has come from, the only proper way is to turn your phone to airplane mode before you leave the country and then oly use wifi for all phone usage while abroad that way if you never connect to the other countries network then the home network doesnt know you have gone abroard so you dont even get charged for recieving texts or missed calls.

BaritoneUK

Badger_Lady wrote: »

BaritoneUK, I spoke to Orange before I left and they told me they weren't able to do anything their end - they instead gave me instructions for turning off data roaming on my handset. But TomTom complained and asked me to switch it back on again before it would work.

Oh dear. When I phoned up they said they would be able to do this. In the end I haven't been abroad with this phone so I've been ok. But really you did your best and Orange should do more to help you here.

Badger_Lady

Humphrey10 wrote: »

(it will be a bit less accurate if I understand how it work correctly, but it will still work).
option.

Ah, then it must use up data for normal use! Otherwise there would surely be no difference. I did find at one point when. Was stuck in a tricky city centre one-way system that it was completely useless - kept getting confused about which road we were on and giving us random directions with "recalculating" every 30 seconds. So maybe I had inadvertently closed the popup and got the "inaccurate" version..?

parallax_20

Ru_ wrote: »

Thanks, I'll try it.

Maybe it was to do with GPS too, we got lost in a pretty dodgy area and I got a map of the area up. Don't think this phone will be going abroad again with me...

If you have any live widgets that access the internet (i.e.weather updates) running on your homescreens, these would have jumped online too when the connection was active during your mapping session.

When I was abroad, I turned off data roaming, disabled background data, edited APN just to be doubley sure I wasn't hitting with any data charges. And only accessed the internet using WIFI when I could, so far so good.

Not much help to you now though. Sorry.

Parva

Going back to the OP regarding the Desire and its data usage for sat-nav I can sympathise. Mine's on contract but I fortunately decided to take me PAYG sim instead with £15 credit on and leave the contract one at home. Being a relatively new toy to me and the fact that I was in Cyprus I thought I would fire up the navigation stuff and see around my hotels location. Within 10 minutes I had burned all of the credit.

One very, very important point when using the sat-nav on the desire, it does indeed need a data connection and you aren't going to be able to get free wifi on a trip that's further than a few metres from your front door. Absolutely ALWAYS turn satellite view off! I did a 15 minute drive today and used near as damnit nothing datawise (I had set the sat-nav to direct me to my local Morrisons so it was on and working). On a walk to the shop the other day (half a mile, 10 minutes) I had satellite view on and had used nearly 2Mb on that walk.

Now imagine if I had been driving for 30 minutes where the terrain is updating like crazy as opposed to a 10 minute walk. You could burn data at an absolutely incredible rate, my 500Mb allowance on Orange would likely be used within a couple of hours. Mapview as opposed to satellite appears to use very little however and I'd recommend that you stick with using that.

A bit late now I know but for anyone else looking in, DON'T use satellite view when out and about, it eats data for breakfast!

Humphrey10

I don't think TomTom uses much data even if it's turned on, I've just checked on my phone and it says for mobile data 12.4MB sent 130MB received, that includes about 400 miles of driving (plus a tiny bit of internet browsing). That was mostly motorways though, so maybe it doesn't need to check position so often on those as it would somewhere with lots of streets and turnings etc.