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Using mobile data services abroad will eventually get cheaper, but industry body advises that, for now, users will have to cope with the high prices

The cost of accessing mobile data services when abroad will remain high for the foreseeable future but should eventually drop, according to the Mobile Data Association (MDA).

Mike Short, chairman of the MDA and vice-president of O2, said on Monday that it was understandable that the cost of using mobile phones in data applications abroad was variable and could be expensive.

"We are talking about the early days of using mobile technology data applications," Short said. "The prices will vary." He added that this situation had often arisen in the past in the communications business. "I remember when it cost 50p to phone someone in the '01' [Central London telephone] zone — it's a lot cheaper now."

Last week, ZDNet UK warned readers about the high cost of roaming after a reader inadvertently ran up a bill of £800 with Orange while using his mobile datacard in Germany and France. This worked out at £8 per megabyte.

Our research highlighted two major problems — the huge variation in the price-per-megabyte of downloading data on a mobile and the lack of warning given to users before they download.

In general, the mobile suppliers do not indicate the cost of downloading data while the user is actually downloading — a UK citizen who wants Web access while in France must visit his mobile operator’s Web site to check the roaming rate in France. For some countries this can be as much as 100 times the rate paid in the UK.

ZDNet UK asked the four UK vendors who sell data services if they routinely warned users about the higher rates abroad. We also asked them if they had a mechanism in place to warn users if their bill had suddenly grown, which could indicate they had fallen victim to high roaming rates.

Orange does not warn users other than by advising them on their Web site to check the rates. The company does not have a mechanism for warning users that their bill has accelerated out of normal usage rates.

A spokeswoman for T-Mobile said the company did tell its users the cost of roaming but said that "there is no mechanism to automatically inform customers when they go over a certain usage amount". Once again it is down to the user to check their usage themselves, but the T-Mobile data card does allow users to set their own data usage limits.

O2 and Vodafone have not yet responded to our questions, but O2’s Short did say that businesses should expect to pay a lot less than the advertised rates. "The rates for VPNs are much cheaper," he said.

Business users already enjoy cheaper rates. For example, business users of Orange datacards can expect to pay £8 a Megabyte anywhere in the world or less if they user a VPN. Domestic users will pay £10 a Megabyte anywhere in the world except the US and Canada where they will pay £20 a Megabyte.



Source article here --> http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/3ggprs/0,39020339,39235917,00.htm

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Roaming Rip-Offs: Mobile phone operators are stinging GPRS and 3G users with roaming charges of up to £20 a megabyte. That works out at up to £100 for a single iTunes download, and up to £5 just to check your tariff


An investigation by ZDNet UK has exposed the massive charges levied by mobile phone operators on users who download data when abroad.

Data services are increasingly being promoted by mobile phone operators; they let users connect to their corporate email and browse the Web even when they're away from a fixed Internet connection.

When used in the UK, these data services are usually covered by monthly subscriptions, but those who use data services on a pay-as-you-go basis can get a nasty surprise — and this can include contract customers when they travel abroad.


Charges of up to £20 per megabyte mean that it can cost 24p 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.

A download of a single iTunes track could cost up to £100. 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.

Although Orange is the worst offender, all mobile phone networks charge disproportionately high rates for roaming.

The problem is compounded in many cases by a lack of clear information from the operators. 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. 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.


ZDNet UK asked the operators whether they would warn a user if they suddenly incurred huge costs due to using data services abroad, but at the time of posting this story none had responded.

ZDNet UK's investigation also found that......none of the operators make the roaming data charges easy to find on their sites. 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.


It is not just those using mobile data services while travelling abroad who face nasty shocks. ZDNet UK's technology editor Rupert Goodwins got stung by T-Mobile during a trip in the UK.


Goodwins takes up the story of what he considers to be his own Great Train Robbery: "It was too tempting. I'd just got a new phone with GPRS and Bluetooth, I had a Bluetoothed laptop and I was stuck on a train for five hours. Why not see how easy it was to get online and check out how usable GPRS would be? I'd previously used the GNER Wi-Fi service on the journey between London and Edinburgh, but thought the cost of a tenner for the trip was a bit much. I knew that mobile data over the phone was expensive, but a bit of browsing shouldn't break the bank."


"It took me about ten minutes to get the laptop online via the phone — there was a bit of messing about, but nothing unfamiliar to anyone who's experienced with dial-up modems. It seemed quite fast as well; I tried some streaming audio from the BBC, which worked, and a few video clips, which didn't. The VPN to the office was reliable enough for me to check my email, and the usual round of blogs, news sites, Gmail and discussion forums was a great way to pass the time. I logged off after about an hour, having got a bit nervous of the charges. But temptation got the better of me, and I popped on and off throughout the rest of the journey."


"And that was the last I thought about it — until I got a data bill for £150."



See full article here (also table of Roaming Charges compiled by ZdNet) --> http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/3ggprs/0,39020339,39234846,00.htm