MSE News: Holidaymaker sailing Greek islands charged £8,000 after her mobile used...

mobilejunkie

redux wrote: »

Why sanction these users, when it is others causing problems? What is needed is better education (though again, what about people who ignore what is on the website), not closing things down.

'Cause that's what governments often do when they tinker.

pmduk

esuhl wrote: »

Technology is supposed to help us. There is NO TECHNICAL REASON why real-time charges cannot be displayed on a phone's display. But networks haven't been designed to do that because there's no interest in reminding people that they're spending money.

Most phones come with a data counter. But would people who turn off all the existing safeguards bother to use anything additional that is added?

redux

zagfles wrote: »

The solution is far simpler. The problem is that ridiculous charges are allowed - the EU capped ridiculous prices for EU roaming - why not for all roaming? As someone posted above, UW are charging over 1000 times what others charge.

It has taken many years for the mobile networks to be dragged kicking and screaming into the current position regulated by the EU.

The EU MEPs were astonished again and again at the arrogance of mobile networks in behaving as if the Single Market did not apply to them, and at the repetitive lie that networks were only passing on wholesale rates they were being charged themselves, plus a modest margin.

From time to time some governments, including ours, supported and put the case of networks lobbying against it, that market competitiveness would do the job on its own, when patently it wasn't.

EU intervention has had some effects on rates or on charging outside the EU. There is a monthly cap for data charges for use even outside the EU.

But that doesn't help if customers wilfully turn it off, and it is only a cap on aggregate price, not on pro rata rates.

So good luck with that demand that networks bring down rates. Until they do the customer needs to be self-reliant, aware and careful. Unlike your £2000 coffee metaphor, they do publish their rates, and some roaming advice.

Ian011

While having a data usage monitor is fine up to a point, anyone seeing they had used 455 MB would be unlikely to suspect that translated to a phone bill of 8300 quid.

pmduk

I still feel that the Government's response will be that there is sufficient competition in the market. Within this thread we've seen that EE would sell you a £5 data pass whilst o2 would charge a whopping £6 per mb IIRC.

redux

Ian011 wrote: »

While having a data usage monitor is fine up to a point, anyone seeing they had used 455 MB would be unlikely to suspect that translated to a phone bill of 8300 quid.

Indeed, but the prescribed rate of £18.75 is however published on the UW website.

It also contains advice

If you do decide to use your phone while abroad, please be aware of something called inadvertent roaming. This is when a phone picks up a stronger signal from a neighbouring country. This typically happens if you’re close to the border of the country you’re visiting, and can lead to different roaming charges applying. To ensure you don’t connect to the neighbouring country’s network, you can manually select the network of your choice. If you’re not sure how to manually select a network please refer to your handset guide for instructions. Please be aware that you will be responsible for all call and data charges you incur, whether the network has been automatically or manually selected.

redux

pmduk wrote: »

I still feel that the Government's response will be that there is sufficient competition in the market. Within this thread we've seen that EE would sell you a £5 data pass whilst o2 would charge a whopping £6 per mb IIRC.

O2 contract, O2 Travel add-on, £3.99 a day for Turkey, undefined data limit, 120 minutes, 120 texts a day

pmduk

Yes, I've double-checked it was o2's PAYG rate that had stuck in my mind.

zagfles

redux wrote: »

It has taken many years for the mobile networks to be dragged kicking and screaming into the current position regulated by the EU.

The EU MEPs were astonished again and again at the arrogance of mobile networks in behaving as if the Single Market did not apply to them, and at the repetitive lie that networks were only passing on wholesale rates they were being charged themselves, plus a modest margin.

From time to time some governments, including ours, supported and put the case of networks lobbying against it, that market competitiveness would do the job on its own, when patently it wasn't.

EU intervention has had some effects on rates or on charging outside the EU. There is a monthly cap for data charges for use even outside the EU.

But that doesn't help if customers wilfully turn it off, and it is only a cap on aggregate price, not on pro rata rates.

So good luck with that demand that networks bring down rates. Until they do the customer needs to be self-reliant, aware and careful. Unlike your £2000 coffee metaphor, they do publish their rates, and some roaming advice.

A restaurant will have the price for coffee on a menu, but realisticly, who looks at it? Same if you walk into a bar and order a pint, the bar tariff is there at the side of the bar, but does anyone really check it before ordering? No, because even if it's expensive, it's only likely to be 2 or 3 times the expected price, not 1000 times.

There should be an expectation of reasonableness in pricing - otherwise why not charge £18.75 per KB? Then the bill would be £8 million.

The pricing structure is clearly not competitive, it's designed to rip off people who make a mistake. There are laws about unfair contracts and exploitative pricing, which is probably why the networks virtually always accept a much lower sum that the bill that was run up. They don't want it to go to court.

cookie365

Can phones identify the country a network is in? If so it wouldn't seem to be too much of a programming challenge to offer the option to whitelist or blacklist certain countries when roaming.

That would mean you could travel around, say, Kos, and let your phone grab the best local Greek network automatically without the risk of connecting to a Turkish network.