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

Doc_N

zagfles wrote: »

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

Couldn't agree more. And there is:

http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/i-think-theres-an-unfair-term-in-my-contract-what-can-i-do

(Consumer Rights Act 2015)

redux

cookie365 wrote: »

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.

A manual network search shows the names of the networks available, then manually selecting one will leave it on that until further notice. The user can do a new manual search and selection at any time. If there is no signal in a later location, then the phone puts a screen message saying Select network.

But this customer didn't do it.

In addition, the network may have saved a list of preferred networks on the SIM, maybe one or two per commonly visited country, maybe only a dozen, maybe none at all.

This will mean the phone tends to end up on the preferred network. If someone finds the phone goes on to a network they don't want to use, they could edit the list to remove it.

But this won't actually prevent it registering on that network. If in doubt near a border, use manual selection.

jk0

It sounds to me suspiciously like the Turkish mobile phone company deliberately doesn't send any 'Welcome to Turkey' message, in order to rip off us b*stard Europeans who won't let them join the EU.

Be very easy to set up powerful mobile phone transmitters in all Turkish parts of the Med to do just that.

mobilejunkie

Maybe it's those devious North Koreans...

zagfles

jk0 wrote: »

It sounds to me suspiciously like the Turkish mobile phone company deliberately doesn't send any 'Welcome to Turkey' message, in order to rip off us b*stard Europeans who won't let them join the EU.

Be very easy to set up powerful mobile phone transmitters in all Turkish parts of the Med to do just that.

You don't get it, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the Turkish networks. Read post #9, other UK mobile companies/tariffs would have charged nothing or a few £ for exactly the same roaming onto a Turkish network.

The problem is that UW have put an astronomical markup on the roaming cost. They are unlikely to have paid more than a few pounds to the Turkish network (otherwise how could other networks buy the same airtime for a few £).

lizsalisbury27

Having recently been in touch with my mobile network provider Three regarding EU roaming. I was WARNED by the agent to turn off my roaming facility whilst on board both planes or ferries. As he explained that as the roaming facility would connect to the strongest signal available this would THEREFORE be their WORLDWIDE NAVIGATIONAL SYSTEMS!!!

SO PLEASE BE AWARE!!

redux

lizsalisbury27 wrote: »

Having recently been in touch with my mobile network provider Three regarding EU roaming. I was WARNED by the agent to turn off my roaming facility whilst on board both planes or ferries. As he explained that as the roaming facility would connect to the strongest signal available this would THEREFORE be their WORLDWIDE NAVIGATIONAL SYSTEMS!!!

SO PLEASE BE AWARE!!

Not quite, but yes exercise some caution. It won't connect to any of a ship or an aircraft's own nav or com systems.

Many longer crossing ferries and cruise ships and some aircraft have mobile phone coverage, on the same frequencies as ordinary mobile networks, but within the ship or aircraft's systems this is externally connected via a satellite link.

The cost of using satellites is higher, so this may be passed on on higher roaming charges.

The welcome text message on a ferry may be a bit confusing or amusing, like welcome to Iceland in the Adriatic, or welcome to Malta or Isle of Man on a cross-Channel ferry. Usually the higher rate will be given, but one message even told my sister using my phone and SIM it was normal roaming rates; I'm glad she didn't test it.

Just to clarify, the case in the original post isn't about roaming to a passing ship's mobile signal, it's about UW's awful rate in Turkey.

pmduk

lizsalisbury27 wrote: »

Having recently been in touch with my mobile network provider Three regarding EU roaming. I was WARNED by the agent to turn off my roaming facility whilst on board both planes or ferries. As he explained that as the roaming facility would connect to the strongest signal available this would THEREFORE be their WORLDWIDE NAVIGATIONAL SYSTEMS!!!

SO PLEASE BE AWARE!!

The underlying advice is spot-on. You are most likely to lock on to the ship's wi-fi offering via satellite which is hideously expensive. The same advice applies if you are on one of the few, but growing, number of airlines that invite you to use their inflight internet access.

Mister_G

Just to clarify this. The larger cruise ships have two systems.

Firstly, there is the cellphone system, which is really just an onboard cellular base station using the same frequencies as land based base stations. This connects via satellite to whoever the cruise liner company has a deal with (Telnor/Inmarsat).

Secondly, there is the onboard wifi system. This is similar to any public wifi system but with the notable exception that it is far from cheap! If your phone can do wifi calling, then this may be cheaper than the conventional cellphone with its exorbitant maritime rates.

It will depend on which operator you are with and which cruise line you are on as to which is the cheaper option.

The advice is the same as others have given - do your homework before you start to use it!

boatman

If you are off to Europe by ferry you may well activate data roaming on your mobile, completely unaware it could connect to the ships mobile network, many people probably don't know the ship would have it's own network.
http://www.brittany-ferries.co.uk/faq/ships-and-ports/will-my-mobile-phone-work-on-board-the-ferry

http://telenormaritime.com/

At least with WiFi it asks before connecting to a WiFi network, it's all a little toooo automatic with mobile data..