iPhone 3G Data Roaming Warning

philiporeilly

For those of you that are thinking of heading to Northern Ireland or the UK with your iPhone, please remember to turn off your Roaming otherwise you will be completely ripped off by O2. I should have checked this beforehand and I have made a valuable lesson but hopefully this post will protect other O2 iPhone customers.

I spent two days in Belfast on O2 UK and made only a handful of telephone calls but when I returned home I had a bill for over €280 for one month, which €170 plus VAT was for data in Belfast. Needless to say I'm not browsing constantly on 3G / Edge and never have gotten close to even half of my 1024Mb (1Gb) limit.

Having called O2, I was told that O2 charge 1c per kb, which works out at €10.24 per Mb. So all I got for my €170 PLUS VAT was a few emails and one or two web pages.

Now lets put this into context before we have some O2 staff saying that these prices are not ripping us off.

• To visit the O2 homepage (1 page only) will cost you €7.68 plus VAT.
• To visit Sky News homepage (1 page only again no reading articles) will cost you €13.68 plus VAT.
• RTE's news site which is fairly basic will cost you ONLY €3.32 PLUS VAT for one page view.
• Boards.ie thanks to their optimised website will only cost you €4.05 to view one page (homepage)!

Needless to say I am extremely unhappy with O2 but have no option but to pay the bill. Thankfully the EU announced this week that they will be outlawing this practice of roaming "bill shock" from next year.

Tom Dunne

philiporeilly wrote: »

Now lets put this into context before we have some O2 staff saying that these prices are not ripping us off.

There a few weeks back, I was taking a trip to Germany.

Before I went, I made a phonecall and found out what the data rates were (I'm on Meteor with my iPhone, btw). They were identical - €10.24 per megabyte.

So the prices are the same, no matter who you roam with. Either way, the Meteor representative, in her best script reading voice, said the official Meteor line was not to use your mobile when roaming, it's just too expensive.

I'm not saying it's not expensive, I am saying that you really need to know how much things are going to cost you before you use them.

philiporeilly

Made a valuable lesson but want to promote this as much as possible hoping to stop others making the same mistake! Thankfully the EU are bringing laws into force next year to stop this practice of massive roaming bills.

Tom Dunne

philiporeilly wrote: »

Made a valuable lesson but want to promote this as much as possible hoping to stop others making the same mistake!

TBH, we get threads like this started quite regularly over on the Mobiles/PDA forum, I think people are becoming aware of the cost.

seamus

My iPhone came with data roaming switched off by default, so I would imagine most people made the conscious decision to enable data roaming at some point.

I rang O2 to confirm that roaming was enabled on my account and she specifically recommended that I ensure that data roaming is disabled on my phone because it's just too expensive.

TinCool

This really is a sad state of affairs and although I do miss Ireland, in most ways I'm glad I don't live in the Rip Off Republic these days. I've got a contract with 3 here in the UK. I pay £5 per month above my normal rental for unlimited data usage. Also, which is the main reason I went with 3, is that when in a different country, say Ireland for me as an example, and you're "roaming" on their network in that country , the phone and it's charges act as if I'm on my home network in the UK. Which is great for me when I'm visiting EIRE. I can surf the net, check mails, ring UK numbers and it gets taken out of my monthly free units like I'm still there. Of course, I do get dinged for calling say an irish mobile whilst roaming on 3 in Ireland.

I'm not aware of any other network that offers such a nice facility: "Roam on our networks in other countries like you're still on your home network".

Tom Dunne

Isn't that what Three Ireland are offering?

http://www.three.ie/international/country_gb_1.htm

luckat

I normally have it switched on, because a lot of apps I use - Truphone, for example, which allows you to make international calls for the price of a local call - don't work without it.

If you're going abroad and want to switch it off, the route is Settings, then choose General, then choose Network.

Bicky

philiporeilly wrote: »

hankfully the EU announced this week that they will be outlawing this practice of roaming "bill shock" from next year.

What does this mean exactly?
Will the EU set a rate at which data roaming can be charged?

philiporeilly

Bicky wrote: »

What does this mean exactly?
Will the EU set a rate at which data roaming can be charged?

The EU have announced that as of next year operators have to agree a max amount with customers that can be spent while roaming. While roaming, when you reach 80% of the max amount they have to inform you by text or otherwise. This rules out "Bill Shock" as it is called when you arrive home to massive bills.

Random

"bill shock" = the customer didn't bother to check the price and ran up a huge bill. It should possibly be called "another idiot".. but there ya have it.

Yes, data is far too expensive in my opinion, but it costs what it costs and saying you didn't know what it cost just won't cut it.

People need to take responsibility for their actions.

philiporeilly

Random wrote: »

People need to take responsibility for their actions.

Promoting the issue and complaining helps to protect customers and force companies to change. Also without legistlation on issues like these you would still have exorbitant call rates for roaming.

I should have checked the rates beforehand as its hard to believe that looking at one webpage could cost you over €8 while still on O2.

This is extortion and O2 have admitted that they will be addressing their excessive data roaming rates on their forums.

Random

philiporeilly wrote: »

Promoting the issue and complaining helps to protect customers and force companies to change. Also without legistlation on issues like these you would still have exorbitant call rates for roaming.

I should have checked the rates beforehand as its hard to believe that looking at one webpage could cost you over €8 while still on O2.

This is extortion and O2 have admitted that they will be addressing their excessive data roaming rates on their forums.

I agree that the prices are absolutely shocking and downright ridicolous. This still does not create any sympathy in me though for those who don't check these prices before using the service.

Whether O2 are bringing out a new data roaming package (which I think is a good thing!) or not isn't really relevant here IMO.