Mobile phone rip-offs
p2p news / p2pnet: Mobile phone operators are ripping off European GPRS and 3G users to the tune of up to £20 a megabyte (more than $35), says ZDNet UK.
At that price, “it can cost 24p (close to 50 cents) 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,” it says, going on:
“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.”
The ZDNet investigation showed Orange up as the worst offender, but all mobile phone networks charge disproportionately high rates for roaming, it found.
“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,” it says. “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.”
None of the operators make the roaming data charges easy to find on their sites, says the story, adding:
“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. Had we not had Adobe Reader already installed then the 27.4MB download, which would have allowed us to view the PDF, could have cost over £270.”
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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win
- Mohandas Gandhi
Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local political representatives. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance.
See:-
ZDNet UK – £100 for an iTunes download: The real cost of roaming, November 1, 2005
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
November 1st, 2005 at 9:53 pm
I am a capitalist, but I am highly suspicious of any product that comes from a big company. It is a shame that people have to excercise extreme paranoia by being customers to these outfits. I am extremely suspicious of any product or service that requires my name or address. Too many people have been getting ripped off as of late.
November 1st, 2005 at 11:52 pm
“Had we not had Adobe Reader already installed then the 27.4MB download, which would have allowed us to view the PDF, could have cost over £270.”
ha ha ha… nice one vodafone, that’ll teach’em to query your pricing plan while using the serice they are paying for!
You would be better off doing a little war-driving or just find a wireless cyber-cafe or something similar rather than pay for something which you should surely suspect to be exorbitant before using it in the 1st place.
November 2nd, 2005 at 9:58 am
In oz orange charges 3cents per packet (typically 1kilobyte) on their 2.5g cdma network, i’ve no idea what the 3g network charges are.
3cents per k. That’s 3000 cents per meg or 30 dollars. The scary thing is, there are ppl out there who are fine with that. Wish i had so much money.