Considering Europe is now in theory one big happy family it still shocks me how much we’re charged for going abroad. For example, if I got in the car now and drove to the EuroTunnel I could be in Paris in a couple of hours. However, I’ll get charged a premium for using the mobile phone.
This ZDnet story serves as a warning to anyone. Businessman Roger Steare decided to use his Orange 3G / GPRS datacard whilst in France and Germany and then came home to a £769 bill. He was charged an amazing £8 per Mb. If he’d stayed in the UK then the total bill would’ve cost around £10.
Wait – I don’t think that sunk in. If he’d stayed at HOME he would’ve spent £10 downloading the same data, however because he was in France / Germany (not too far away), it cost £768.
Roger was a tad shocked – as anyone would be really…
“I was looking forward to using my Orange card while I was in France on holiday and Germany on business. I was prepared to pay a premium and thought it might be four or five times what I pay in the UK — that’s a reasonable premium — I didn’t expect it to be 100 times the rate.”
This is yet another glaring example of the terrible roaming costs, however it also shows the crazy costs of data which are inflated hugely when you travel abroad.
Source – ZDNet.co.uk