Times Online readers have voiced anger at excessive charges and unclear guidance from mobile phone companies on the cost of downloading data through a handset while abroad.
Customers have been especially annoyed that companies have failed to provide breakdowns of charges when they have queried the bills.
Regulators have so far been reluctant to act because they say the present market for data downloads is too small. However, a host of companies are banking on mobile Internet services becoming hugely popular. In the past week both Yahoo and Goggle have announced services that make use of wireless networks to deliver content to handsets
Mobile phone companies have defended the huge cost of downloading data overseas despite conceding that prices "need to change". The European Commission has already told Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile and O2 that the high costs of data services had "not escaped its attention".
They are not alone in wanting to put themselves in their customer’s hands. Last week Microsoft said that its new web-based services, which include online versions of its most popular software packages, would be available from mobiles supporting its Windows software. Television producers already make special "mobisodes" of some programmes, designed for mobile phones and downloadable over the net.
The cases reported to Times Online range from individuals being charged £10 for downloading a single small file to catch up with football results, to bills in the hundreds of pounds handed to those who used the heavily marketed data services on longer trips.
An investigation by The Times revealed that some customers have been charged nearly 100 times more for downloading data, such as e-mails or music, over their handsets while abroad, compared with rates in the UK.
One Orange customer described to The Times how he returned home from a business trip abroad to face a bill of more than £650 after downloading just over 80 megabytes of data. His contract said that in the UK he paid only £45 a month for 400 megabytes
A spokesman for Orange told Times Online: "This is a market thing. From a UK perspective it is fair within the market. Our prices are as fair as they possibly can be."
T-Mobile, which advertises the cost of data downloads abroad on its website at £7.50 per megabyte, said: "T-Mobile UK’s long-term aim is to permanently reduce the wholesale costs of roaming abroad charged by foreign operators, with the ultimate aim of continually offering improved rates to our customers
In the spring of 2000, telecoms companies paid £22.5 billion in 3G – or Internet phone – license fees in the UK alone, hoping to cash in on the new market
In an e-mail to Times Online, Tony Brighton described how he returned from a year's sailing in the Mediterranean with his wife to face an unexpected bill totalling hundred of pounds. "Our preferred method of managing our affairs and keeping in contact was to use a laptop computer with a Vodafone GPRS card.
"This was a UK contract with data charged at £5 a megabyte. Before setting off on our travels we contacted Vodafone to ask whether there would be an additional charge from countries abroad. The answer we received was 'it probably varies but we cannot tell you what the charge will be'. Despite this unsatisfactory answer we decided to give it a try," he said.
Seven weeks after Mr Brighton and his wife started travelling, the first bill arrived from Vodafone. Mr Brighton had downloaded about 2.5 megabytes of data in the first four weeks but had been charged £47 - around four times the amount expected.
"We called Vodafone to ask for an explanation of the charge. They could not break down the cost for us and made some feeble attempt to blame the local country charges despite the fact that we were using Vodafone's local network in those countries or their partner networks," Mr Brighton said.
"For the majority of subsequent web browsing we had to track down a local Internet cafe which cost us on average 2 pounds for 30 minutes - but which we could only use when were moored to the shore."
Over the year Mr Brighton said he was charged around £500 more than he had budgeted for.
"Vodafone were unresponsive and indeed, charged us for the calls to help resolve this issue. Not everyone who needs to use data services is a business person on a short trip with deep pockets," he said.
The stories of people being stung by what they feel are excessive charges also including users who have experimented with data downloading services just once while abroad.
Readers angry over mobile download charges
Fri, 11 Nov 2005
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