Data Roaming Charges in EU, Irish Customers Be Warned

caseyd4

900% Euro Bonus for Mobile Operators

It's almost a year on now, and yet we are not to see providers pass on the savings they are making on Data Roaming charges. I can't say the shock has disappeared either.
I travelled to London twice at the end of last year, for half a day in November and again in December for a pre-Christmas trip with my girlfriend. I use my new touch phone for browsing the web checking my e-mails and Google maps while abroad. What I believed to be low data usage, alas with less than 5 days usage in the UK, I now find I had accumulated 27mb of usage in this time. For the privilege of UN usable internet that wouldn’t even load a map of London, I received a bill of €300 for December and €150 for November. This broke down into €70 and €200 in data roaming charges in those months of which would an additional charge of 21.5% VAT to be added. For 5 days roaming with no downloads, I have been charged a total of €320 euro inc VAT, while it cost Meteor thanks to the new EU Charges a total of €27.
A call to the Comreg to query how this could be possible for a mobile operator to charge to such excess left me with the good old Irish warm feeling.
“Sir, we don’t have control over mobile retail charges. They can charge whatever they want.”

Nody

And is there any specific reason why you did not bother to look up the cost before hand as roaming (esp. data roaming) has been known to cost an arm and two legs for years with regularly reoccuring stories in the papers?

Seanohea

I went shopping to newry recently and and had a look at google maps once to find the shopping centre, o2 charged me €6 for that alone.
Next time I am up north or go to the uk I'm just gna put a pay as u go sim in my iphone, and turn the Internet off for roaming. It's not worth it for what u may be charged. I can put my normal sim in at the end of the day to check for any texts, rather than paying to to recieve calls on bill where you can't monitor the cost.

Cabaal

Nody wrote: »

And is there any specific reason why you did not bother to look up the cost before hand as roaming (esp. data roaming) has been known to cost an arm and two legs for years with regularly reoccuring stories in the papers?

Its well known data roaming costs are high.

You'd be extremely foolish to use ANY service without first knowing its cost, be it a call on a payphone or making a call on your mobile.....especially if your in another country!

All the providers provide the pricing info on their websites and you can also easily call them to query charges.

foggy_lad

just buy a prepay sim in the north and use that for your trips there! same for people going to the uk and europe simply buy a local prepaid sim for cheap data usage!

if irish companies are too expensive why would you give them any roaming business at all?

eth0_

I visit the UK and N.Ireland frequently. My mobile is on 3 Ireland, so I almost never pay roaming charges when i'm on the 3UK network. I don't pay a cent more to text or call within Ireland if I am in the UK, and data costs the exact same price as long as I am on 3UK.

OP, it's entirely your own fault for not being aware of the charges.

ardmacha

Vodafone Live 99c/day including roaming is a good deal in all of the countries where it operates, which is pretty much all of the EU. No need to buy a SIM in every country.

ednwireland

i'm with vodafone and was picking up my email last weekend in the UK on my nokia phone got charged 0.02c per connection

nowhere near 27Mb though (less than 1/27th of that)

WildRover234

Has anyone figured out the best option for O2 subscribers that roam a lot?

The scenario is an Irish person living abroad that wants to keep his Irish number so as not to loose contact with people.

So no a lot of calls - just a few incoming roaming calls every now and then.

spank_inferno

For using the live.vodafone.com apn with Vodafone, the costs when abroad are the same as they are domestically.

other apns thougha re a different mantter.