back to article EE looks at its call charges, hikes a bunch, walks off giggling

UK telco EE will next month hike fees for people using their phones outside their price plans, with international calls increasing as much as 60 per cent. Under the new price plan that will come into force from 28 September, UK calls to mobiles, landlines and voicemail will increase from 40p to 50p per minute, while …

  1. alain williams Silver badge

    Change in contract terms ?

    Surely this is a change in contract terms; so those with long contracts should be able to hand their 'phone back and walk. Price increases clauses in contracts should be for RPI increases not huge things like this.

    Having said that: they have more expensive lawyers than you do.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Change in contract terms ?

      Only skimmed the article, but it seems these are Out Of Bundle charges ... the equivalent of the Mortgage Base Rate *after* your special deal has ended.

      The charges *in* bundle (i.e. the headline figure you signed up for) remains the same.

      So as long as you stay in bundle, you won't notice.

      Of course, commercially, most corporate customers will have negotiated the cheapest^H^H^H^H^H^H^HH smallest bundles possible .....

      1. Jimlad

        Re: Change in contract terms ?

        I read this as being about charges incurred for going above outside the bundled calls/text provided for within the contract.

        It's more like a bank changing its overdraft fees.

    2. IsJustabloke
      Stop

      Re: Change in contract terms ?

      Vodashite had a clause that allowed them to change prices during the term of a contract and I imagine that EE do as well BUT these changes refer to out of bundle charges and anyone using them in anything other than an emergency probably deserves to be reamed.

      It's always been cheaper to get on a plane and talk face to face than use a mobile phone OOB

      1. katrinab Silver badge

        Re: Change in contract terms ?

        You are allowed to have a clause in your contract that increases charges by the rate of inflation. Inflation is nowhere near 60%.

        1. robidy

          Re: Change in contract terms ?

          Any reason there is no mention of the recent BT take over of EE triggering price de-harmonisation to increase ebitda to ensure the EE customers fund BT's acquisition.

      2. Jon 37

        Re: Change in contract terms ?

        "It's always been cheaper to get on a plane and talk face to face than use a mobile phone OOB"

        That's not true. When GSM mobile phones first became common, the out-of-bundle charges were reasonable, and the bundle was just there to pay for the phone and/or give you a discount.

        The modern approach of "if you use over your bundled amount then we're going to charge a punitive amount" came later.

    3. Mephistro

      Re: Change in contract terms ?

      To those who disagree with Mr. alain williams comment:

      I'd be really surprised if the cost of services 'over the bundle' wasn't clearly specified in the original contracts. If this was the case, the contract would be saying, basically: "We will charge you whatever we want for services not included in the bundle", which would make the contract invalid in most (civilized) countries.

  2. Ashton Black

    Understandable...

    As much as I hate this, one can suspect our hand held computers, which sometimes get used as phones, are more geared, these days, for OTT services rather than pure voice. The market for voice is falling year on year, so it's bound to have hikes like this. (http://uk.businessinsider.com/ee-stats-on-decline-of-voice-calls-in-uk-2015-10?r=US&IR=T)

    1. Valeyard

      Re: Understandable...

      yeah i can't even remember the last time i made a phone call. It's a handheld computer with phone functionality, rather than a phone with extra features...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Understandable...

      It depends does putting the price up increase or reduce the revenue/profit?

      Seeing as the cost for an individual to make a call is very low (the Cost of Sale) then by reducing prices you might increase the take up and therefore increase overall profits.

      We had a product with minimal cost of sale per user but a large yearly fixed cost for us to provide. We were barely breaking even, reduced the cost by 50% and now we have doubled the revenue paying for the service twice over.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I suppose...

    Someone has to pay for all those Kevin Bacon ads on the telly box

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: I suppose...

      And don't forget BT Sport.

    2. Gavin Chester

      Re: I suppose...

      More Likely to cover the drop in profits as EU roaming charges have been capped by the EU.

      Think of it as a balloon, Squish a balloon in your fist, and it pops out elsewhere. So force prices down in one place, so they have to increase elsewhere.

      1. Intractable Potsherd

        Re: I suppose...

        No - they don't *have* to. Making the same profit as last year isn't a right or a duty.

        1. quxinot

          Re: I suppose...

          "No - they don't *have* to. Making the same profit as last year isn't a right or a duty."

          You get an upvote for that level of naivety. :)

          Seeing as it's been some significant time since we've seen any news item on a company actively investing in their future on a timescale longer than "tommorrow". The fact that this is shortsighted seems utterly lost on most.

          It's a shame that companies (or, tellingly, shareholders) don't take a longer view on making money. And while I'm wishing, I'd like politicians that represented the majority of humanity, instead of the majority of money (read: the monied).

  4. Oor Nonny-Muss

    EE sure are fitting in to the BT group's corporate ethos well. I expect the next thing will be connection charges on top.

    1. AndyMulhearn

      And Line Rental?

    2. phuzz Silver badge

      They'll insist that you need a landline as well, otherwise your contract will cost twice as much.

  5. Angus Ireland

    Looks like I got out just in time, then. I was already paying over the odds for the service I was receiving, especially in the international department, so left just last month.

    Good to see the sale to BT hasn't stopped them charging a termination fee for cancelling a contract whose minimum term finished some 4 years ago, and whose Terms and Conditions explicitly state there is no Cancellation Charge for leaving...

  6. Fihart

    EE and PAYG vermin

    I'm now immune to EE's price shenanigans having previously been shocked by increase in texting price to 12p -- and not prepared to make voice calls at 30p a min.

    Solution; keep EE existing number on locked iPhone for incoming calls. Put 3 Network SIMM in second phone for outgoing and enjoy calls at 3p a min and text at 2p *.

    Though EE's "6 Month Web" deal at £20 was decent value, 3 Network's 1p a meg is more flexible and cheap enough that I'm happy to use mobile data for the first time.

    I'll only keep EE as long as a friend keeps gifting me her old EE-locked phones.

    * See also GiffGaff, Lebara, Lycamobile.

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: EE and PAYG vermin

      Wouldn't be easier to just unlock the iPhone so you can use a 3 SIM in it? There are websites which do this if EE won't.

    2. James 51

      Re: EE and PAYG vermin

      That's why dual sim phones are a good idea (and why networks hate them).

      1. Mike Taylor

        Re: EE and PAYG vermin

        Quite. I have both 3 and EE sims in my 950xl and use them wisely. Cheaper and better.

      2. ARGO

        Re: EE and PAYG vermin

        >That's why dual sim phones are a good idea (and why networks hate them).

        Three in the UK actually sell a couple of dual SIM handsets in their stores.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: EE and PAYG vermin

      With a second mobile sim that has free 0800 numbers (giffgaff etc), use a company like 1899.com to get price per minute down to 1p (5p connection fee applies). You have to first phone a free 0800 number, then enter the number you want to call.

      Quality isn't always great, but its good for call centre calls via mobile, where you're kept on hold for 10 minutes, so a 15p (10p+5p) charge, as opposed to £3.00 charge, then I just ask to be phoned back. The 1899 generated calls are billed separately/paid separately from your Mobile account.

      Works well enough, can be a bit tedious at times though, when you just need to speak to someone quickly, where a three sim 3-2-1 sim is a better bet, where the call quality matters.

      1. Uplink

        Re: EE and PAYG vermin

        "With a second mobile sim that has free 0800 numbers"

        All 0800 numbers are free from all UK mobiles since 1 July 2015. http://media.ofcom.org.uk/news/2015/call-charges-clearer-from-wednesday/

        I can't believe this isn't common knowledge yet. I keep seeing stuff like "Call 0800 xyz free from your landline, or 0300 xyz free from your mobile." I had a small conversation with somebody who insisted that the 0800 number is not free from mobile, but the 0300 is (it isn't, if you're wondering, unless you have bundled landline minutes). After having this "debate" with the person in question, I found out that some of the leaflets she was handing out (but not all of them) actually said "0800 numbers are free to call from both landlines and mobiles."

    4. Uplink

      Re: EE and PAYG vermin

      "Solution; keep EE existing number on locked iPhone for incoming calls. Put 3 Network SIMM in second phone for outgoing"

      Have you thought about unlocking the phone (call EE; they want £8.99 to do this) and porting your EE number to Three? It sounds like just the thing you need.

  7. djstardust

    Just fancy that

    BT get involved and the prices go shooting up.

    Considering they hiked landline prices twice in 6 months recently this isn't a surprise.

    I was thinking about EE as my next contract because of Vodafone's shocking CS but I guess that's off the cards now. BT are simply the worst company ever (well, tied first place with Microsoft)

    1. Mystic Megabyte
      Unhappy

      Re: Just fancy that

      I would upvote you more if I could. I was contemplating EE as my O2 coverage here is bad. After reading this article I'll stay with O2 for a while yet.

    2. Triggerfish

      Re: Just fancy that

      EE also formerly be Orange. I once had an issue to sort out between BT and Orange, I Have never seen such a clusterfuck.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What the hell is that stock photo supposed to represent?

    So the pregnant/fat one on the sofa is illustrating the size of something with disbelief or anger, and the skinny dumb looking one with the vacant stare, piggy nose and the checked shirt is ignoring the pregnant/fat one in favour of something more interesting on her landfill Android.

    What's that got to do with the story?

    1. Mystic Megabyte
      Stop

      Re: What the hell is that stock photo supposed to represent?

      You are Milo Yiannopolis and I claim my £5.

    2. gypsythief

      Re: What the hell is that stock photo supposed to represent?

      The girl in the foreground is the daughter, racking up huge phone bills chatting to and texting her mates.

      The woman on the sofa is her mother, already fed up with the vast phone bills her daughter is racking up, and now about to get even more frustrated due to EE's price hike.

      C'mon, let your imagination roam a little! Even if we can't afford to on our mobiles anymore.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Happy

        Re: What the hell is that stock photo supposed to represent?

        Of course, most EE contracts are capped, but lets gloss over that.

      2. J.G.Harston Silver badge

        Re: What the hell is that stock photo supposed to represent?

        "The woman on the sofa is her mother, already fed up with the vast phone bills her daughter is racking up"

        What business is it of the mother's? It's the daughter's phone, it's the daughter's problem. There's taking parenting too far, and there's micromanaging their every second of their life.

        1. heyrick Silver badge

          Re: What the hell is that stock photo supposed to represent?

          "It's the daughter's phone, it's the daughter's problem."

          ...only if the daughter is paying the bill.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: What the hell is that stock photo supposed to represent?

          What business is it of the mother's?

          Tell me more about your posh home.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What the hell is that stock photo supposed to represent?

      Why do you even care about the stock photo? None of them are ever informative. As far as I can tell, they're just bandwidth-wasting user-trackers.

  9. Version 1.0 Silver badge

    EE can die

    I visited the UK a few months ago and bought EE SIMs with a 1 month package for my families unlocked US based phones - what a joke, I'll never use EE again. Service was intermittent at the best of times and most of the time non-existent - I visited two EE stores to try and resolve the problems and each time was met by staff who had only the vaguest idea how cell phone service works.

    I ended up using my Project Fi phone (which worked perfectly) as a hot-spot so that everyone could communicate through my phone.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Welcome to Britain. Home of the shittest customer service, anywhere in the world.

      Welcome to Britain. Home of the shittest customer service, anywhere in the world.

      Our regulators Ofcom (for Fixed/Mobile Telecoms), Ofgem (for Energy) are manned/funded by ex-employees/Energy Companies/Telcos respectively.

      They are Narcissistic Organisations that only care about their own continued existence, so every solution agreed/put forward involves even more complication, or use of technologies (pointless G.fast) that are designed to bamboozle, obfuscate the market even more, hence reinforce their (regulator) roles.

      Politicians are technically illiterate, (just read the comments by Prospective Prime Minister Andrea Leadsom) regarding the Internet, to hold either regulators or Telco incumbents to account.

      FTTP even in places where its 'obviously' more economically viable long term, is never the solution, if BT/EE can help it. It would make the Broadband speed and contention issues that vast numbers of customers experience, far too easy to pinpoint, against the Telco's own backhaul, as opposed to the local loop/mast.

      Bamboozled, Obfuscated 'upto' speeds suit both the Regulator / and BT/EE (Sweetie). That's what we have, shit as it is. Best to bring a book next time, if you visit anywhere in the UK, yep - just anywhere really.

      1. Barry Rueger

        Re: Welcome to Britain. Home of the shittest customer service, anywhere in the world.

        "Welcome to Britain. Home of the shittest customer service, anywhere in the world."

        Hah! I'm from Canada.

        I win.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Welcome to Britain. Home of the shittest customer service, anywhere in the world.

        Welcome to Britain. Home of the shittest customer service, anywhere in the world.

        You clearly don't get out (abroad) much. Bad as British customer service can be, there is much, much worse out there!

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Welcome to Britain. Home of the shittest customer service, anywhere in the world.

          Well BT is a global company, we have potential to spread our shit far and wide (out there), in terms of customer service.

  10. Hans 1
    WTF?

    Ripp-off Britain

    Let's compare this:

    EE: £17.99 2GB Unlimited [Minutes] Unlimited [texts]

    Mine: £17.00 50Gb Unlimited [Minutes] Unlimited [texts] +++

    1. I can call landlines in approx 100 countries, fully comp

    2. I can call mobiles in US/Canada, fully comp

    3. I have 35days/year roaming (data, voice, text) included in Europe, US, Australia

    http://shop.ee.co.uk/sim-only/pay-monthly-phones

    http://mobile.free.fr/*

    Click on "Le forfait sans engagement en détail" on the 15€ 99/19€ 99 offer ... I took 19€ 99 for the conversion ... I live in France ... EE's rates look like what our rates were ... before free mobile came along and scooped up every Frenchman with a working pair of braincells or calculator handy ...

    1. JassMan

      Re: Ripp-off Britain

      Its not just the mobile phones which are a rip-off. @Hans1, like you I live in France and pay 36€ for my ADSL connection. I find that with telephone and TV bundled with this that it is unmatchable value compared to any offer available in UK once your low price period ends. I have also found that the 0€ mobile offer is sufficient since you have unlimited texts. Even if you exceed the 2hours of voicecalls/month the charges are so reasonable, they are not worth worrying about.

      I can't wait for the offer of a free upgrade to freebox mini with its built in femtocell.

      1. Jamie Jones Silver badge

        Re: Ripp-off Britain

        Um.. I'm not one of those "Britain is the best" jingoistic Brexit voters, but the prices both of you quote are huge.

        You can get unlimited mobile data and texts for £15 a month, and broadband for less than £20

        I believe what you both say, but you are certainly comparing expensive deals!

    2. heyrick Silver badge

      Re: Ripp-off Britain

      "... before free mobile came along and scooped up every Frenchman with a working pair of braincells"

      I'm with Orange. My everything bundle costs €70 a month. Why do I pay more?

      Easy. I have watched Free and Orange arguing over who is responsible for a faulty setup for SIX months. Free said the box worked fine, it was Orange. Orange said the line worked fine, it was Free. Turned out to be a faulty ADSL filter, though it took half a year (paying all the while for nothing) plus a lot of hassle before that got identified as the cause.

      And just this week? Woman has moved into a new place and her SFR box isn't working with the phone line. Rinse, repeat, recycle.

      I have to analogue phone line. My phone is VoIP from the Livebox. It's a 4.7km long overhead line. I live rural. If I had a broadband contact with somebody else and there was a problem with the line [*], how long do you think it would take Orange to consider looking at the line of a subscriber that isn't even paying them? I rely on having connectivity, I pay through the nose so I can feel that I won't be dicked around by two companies mostly uninterested in me. In my experience, French customer service is very friendly but mostly useless, so minimising the excuse potential is good. I might have gone with Free if I was in an urban area, but out here it's too risky. Besides Free quote me a single megabit. I get a reliable two off Orange. Degroup test. Don't remember the URL, you give it your phone number and it gives you all the offers that are available.

      * - we're techies, we know that if the line isn't approx -48V at rest then something is wrong.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Ripp-off Britain

      What's Free's coverage like? How much 3G/4G is there? What is the performance like?

      The French telecoms regulator seems to have some issues with their investment strategy in the past. http://www.fiercewireless.com/europe/free-mobile-faces-probe-over-3g-network-coverage

      EE, despite being obscenely expensive, does at least spend a lot of their cash on their network.

  11. Anonymous South African Coward Bronze badge

    Ba-psssch, in South Africa Vodacom will rip you several new ones, should you dare to go out of bundle...

    Vodacom = R2.00 per Mb OOB

    And they all act as if they're above the law...

    1. gnasher729 Silver badge

      "Vodacom = R2.00 per Mb OOB"

      That's one good thing about O2. If your data runs out, it just stops working. No ridiculous overdraft fees. Instead you may if you wish so pay £6 for another 500 MB which works for the current and the next month. If you don't wish to pay, you get no data and pay nothing.

  12. Jules 1

    OTT

    This is outrageous, but as the article suggests - use an over the top service like internetcalls.com (or one of the many,many clones run by Dellmont, see http://backsla.sh/betamax) for international calls.

    They have a handy app called MobileVOIP for iOS and Android.

    They also have landline access numbers via which calls can be made using your phone plan free minutes instead of a flaky data connection.

  13. Anonymous South African Coward Bronze badge

    OTT services = death of traditional SP's who don't want to adapt.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Family Ties (Uncanny)

    I always thought that Max Hardcore was Kevin Bacons dad!

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I know giving BT a kicking is a longstanding Reg tradition, but...

    ...what idiots are making out of bundle calls? I bet there's not a single punter here who makes even a dent in their allowance.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I know giving BT a kicking is a longstanding Reg tradition, but...

      > ...what idiots are making out of bundle calls? I bet there's not a single punter here who makes even a dent in their allowance.

      I'm sure there are plenty of people who make occasional calls abroad which are classed as out of allowance and would rather be paying 10p/min for them rather than 160p/min, no matter how occasional.

      1. katrinab Silver badge

        Re: I know giving BT a kicking is a longstanding Reg tradition, but...

        Very few bundles cover international calls. I use Skype for those, I can talk for about 2 hours for the price of a 1 minute call on EE. There are other providers, some of them may be cheaper.

    2. Vic

      Re: I know giving BT a kicking is a longstanding Reg tradition, but...

      what idiots are making out of bundle calls? I bet there's not a single punter here who makes even a dent in their allowance.

      Well, as I don't have an allowance, I guess I'm that idiot.

      I was pissed off at my service going up to 15p/min until I read this article...

      Vic.

    3. Graham 7

      Re: I know giving BT a kicking is a longstanding Reg tradition, but...

      Sadly there are a lot of (mostly female) people that seem to go over their allowance fairly frequently talking to friends and family rather than using services like Skype.

      And there is no warning from EE that this is going to happen. You'd think they would send a text or something to say that you are about to go over your 1000/2000 included minutes, but it appears not. So it's when the money comes out of your bank account that you find out.

      OTOH EE are perfectly happy to completely stop mobile data as soon as you go a byte over. Why they can't offer a low-bandwidth backup until the end of the month is beyond me ... no, wait, £7.99/GB add-on. Which means that one child YouTube session with WiFi off can be quite costly (even though you've set YouTube to low quality when not on WiFi).

  16. PassiveSmoking

    EE (T-mobile at the time) are the reason I ditched term contracts, switched to rolling contracts and just buy the phone myself.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yet again story

    to validate my decision to buy a network-free dual SIM phone.

    Big up the Wileyfox Swift.

    Again.

  18. Phil W

    Not that big of a problem

    As per title, I don't think this is really a big problem.

    If you're making that many calls outside your bundle that the increased call charges affect you significantly, then you're almost certainly not on the best value bundle for your level of usage and should switch tariff to one that includes the volume of calls you make.

    In terms of voice calls the only people this will affect are people who go very slightly over their bundled calls each month, and if they only go over very slightly the cost increase will be minimal.

    As for the other stuff, like picture messaging, who actually sends MMS messages these days anyway?

    I've stuck with T-Mobile/EE for a number of years now for only one reason really, the fact that their data usage is capped. You get what's included in your tariff and then you're cut off, unless you actively choose to pay to add more on. Admittedly their data add-ons are horrendously over priced, but at least I get to choose whether I pay it.

    I find this far more preferably to many other networks, where they charge either a fairly hefty per MB rate (1p per MB sounds cheap, until you realise it's £10 per GB) or a daily rate (£1 a day sounds good unless you accidentally use all your data within the first week of your billing cycle) for any usage over your bundled data, which could potentially lead to some fairly inflated bills.

    Of course most smartphones now have very easy methods to switch off or cap mobile data built right into the OS, but back in the days of Windows Mobile 5/6 devices and the like such an option was either third party or did not exist.

    It only took one massively inflated bill from O2, after my Windows Mobile device had lost it's WiFi connection and had eaten through a GB or two of data, for me to realise having the network automatically cut you off rather than just keep billing you was the way forward.

  19. Nifty Silver badge

    A long list of countries can be called on my PAYG Three handset for 3p/min using Three's dialling prefix deal. And UK calls are in every way cheaper than my unused landline. This proves what a folly more mobile network mergers would have been.

    1. Jamie Jones Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      YES!

      I'm no 'three' shill, but the three PAYG prices are so much lower than the others, that I'm surprised anyone bothers with anyone else.

      Don't forget you can add montlh;y bundles to that, with no contract or requirement to renew.

      When I last moved, I bought a £15 "unlimited data for a month" bundle, as I was without a landline for a couple of weeks.

      What's more, I phoned them once regarding my address change, and 'sales' tried to get me on contract. I worked out that even their best 'specials' were worse than the PAYG option, and I told her that.

      Of course, she was surprised(!) at their PAYG rates, and I ended the call suggesting that if they want more sales, they should ask their PAYG department to stop undercutting them!

  20. Luke 11

    Cost increases

    It's funny how bills always increase by RPI but wages only go up with CPI...

    1. The_Idiot

      Re: Cost increases

      "...wages only go up with CPI"

      Er - _wages_? Go _up_?

      Yes. I remember those days too - but then, there's rocks round here called me granfer when they was mountains... sigh.

  21. MotionCompensation

    When your currency goes down...

    ...prices go up. It's a third world reality I know all too well.

    1. P. Lee

      Re: When your currency goes down...

      >When your currency goes down......prices go up. It's a third world reality I know all too well.

      Only for stuff you are importing. But any major financial change will be used as an excuse to bump prices, eh?

      Are they suddenly funding a massive new program requiring new hardware? I'm guessing not. More likely acquisitions have been done with debt which needs to be paid off. Like the price hikes Dell had after they went private again. Of course, if you have outsourced most of your business abroad, then you are hostage to currency variations. But the business manager knows that, right? That risk was always accounted for and the decision was made based on short-term profit gain.

      1. MotionCompensation

        Re: When your currency goes down...

        I'm sure they have to pay €€ for international calls. And yes, any excuse will do. Here, we see the prices go up when the currency might go down, then go up again when the currency actually goes down, then go up again because to few people are buying the now too expensive stuff and the few people still buying have to cover the cost.

  22. Slx

    Welcome to BT!

  23. Big-G

    Making the case for disruptors...

    ...like whatsapp, and dualsim phones, it should end in tears or BT/EE, however, if it werent for the near monopoly, being created by their merger, I would say, bring on their tears, but I fear customers may well share them.

  24. DamnedIfIKnow

    Are you British?

    No slur intended, it's just that I thought it was obvious he was exaggerating to make the point.

    Anyway, this very day I picked up a friend from the airport who'd been in Latin America for two weeks. Just before he left, Vodafone sent him a series of 4 texts in as many seconds. The first said he owed £15 for data costs, the next said £30,the next £45 and the final one said £60.

    He isn't very technical, and said he hadn't used any data. I said 'No, but your phone has'. I've not been able to discover if he left data roaming on, but I assume he did. Nevertheless, anyone got any comments on the texts he Got?

    1. Graham 7

      Re: Are you British?

      I'm guessing he will be able to get all but 15 quid dropped because the notification didn't get through to him until his return, thus he has no warning.

      TBH the phones these days should be clever enough to know that they are in a different country from the one registered on the SIM, and at least bring up a data usage reuestor as soon as an app does something in the background.

  25. sbivol

    Yesterday, a British guest has shown me an SMS from his operator saying he'll be charged £6 per MB in my country (Moldova). If I would travel to UK, my operator would charge £0.06/MB in Vodafone's network or £0.12/MB in Hutchison 3G or £2.63/MB (T-Mobile).

    Your networks have more competition and many more subscribers, so why are your roaming prices so high compared to our prices for the same service?

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