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Roaming on Ipad can cost 1,000 times the UK rate
ROAMING CHARGES for the Ipad and other tablets can be as much as 1,000 times higher than local UK rates, according to consumer watchdog Which?.
Users will pay as little as £7.50 per month for 1GB of data usage when at home in the UK, but that figure can jump to the outrageous level of several thousand pounds while abroad. If a user downloads a full 1GB of data while abroad they could pay anywhere between £1,000 and £10,000.
Most people will never run up such a high bill, but many consumers have been left with bills for several hundred pounds after using only GPS, checking their emails or browsing the Internet while on holiday.
European Commission regulations requre that there be an automatic bill cut-off in the EU when the figure reaches £40, but such limits are not in place for non-EU countries, making data roaming outside the EU a costly affair. Some telcos have implemented their own limits, but many are happy to let their customers rack up astronomical bills.
Which? also found that making and receiving calls, as well as sending texts, are far too expensive while abroad. The EU has limits on call charges, but in other regions rates can be up to 10 times higher compared to UK prices.
The watchdog cited an example of an average use of roaming while on a two week holiday in France costing £40, but that figure leaps to £190 in the US and £300 in Russia.
Peter Vicary-Smith, CEO of Which? said, "Until data costs come down, anyone considering their tablet or mobile for using the net abroad should steer well clear of 3G data roaming and use free WiFi access where available instead." µ
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Pretty sure the examples ARE accurate, it isn't where your SIM is registered it's where you are romaing, my £350 shocking bill from roaming in the US can attest to this fact!! Learned my lesson the hard way, it's all very well saying people should know the charges but it isn't easy to know exactly how much data a quick wikipedia search is using, apparently they add up pretty quick. Oh well like I say, lesson learned!
I used my iPhone 3G on O2 mostly for maps in China; expected a fairly hideous bill (but still likely cheaper than a taxi to recover from having caught the bus to South Station Street rather than South Street Station), but got a text saying 'you've spend £40 on mobile data; we will charge you no more but cap your use at 50MB'. Seemed completely reasonable; you can send an awful lot of 'please, you have booked my train on the 14th and the hotel on the 16th, am I supposed to sleep rough in Xian on the 15th' emails for a megabyte.
Use a service like Maxroam (http://www.maxroam.com), They're service is cheaper in comparison to most networks for roaming.
No, GPS not GPRS, I would imagine. Most GPS apps on smartphones download map data on the fly rather than using on-board storage (unless pre-syncing with wi-fi).
Still numpties, anyway.
When I landed on the Isle of Man yesterday, I received a text from Orange saying "Browse the mobile internet whilst in the Isle of Man and the rest of the EU for just £3.07 per MB." !!!
Other UK residents working there spoke of receiving astronomic mobile data bills from their service providers.
Dean Wilson,
I would strongly suggest you read the following:
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/roaming/regulation/index_en.htm
You will find the EU regulated controls effected EU members, therefore your example of a user incurring charges against an EU registered sim card(users home country) whilst in USA or Russia is not accurate in this instance.
Take your British registered sim card to Russia and see the controls enforces for yourself.
Oh dear, Inquirer.
Do your research next time, and cut the scaremongering articles.
anyone who downloads 1GB of data whilst roaming abroad on a tablet deserves a huge bill for being stupid, then another for the cost; this isn't news!
I hate people who whinge when they get charged for using data when abroad all because they are too stupid to read how much it costs to use, or learn how their device works.
Also, this can't happen any more due to data caps.
Also GPS is not a connection system, that's GPRS!
Idiots!
It's amazing that you just discovered this. I will give you another news flash any cell device that has to use data roaming will cost and arm and a leg.
Shocking isnt it O_O