The Great Mobile Data Roaming Robbery: How to avoid Telco’s ruining your holiday

Recently I had to pay 873 EUR excl. VAT (1.222 USD) for sending a graphic file from Cannes (France) to a server in Brussels (Belgium) on my mobile Vodafone Proximus data plan.

Proximus Data Roaming Surcharge France

It was a single 90 MB EPS file, which I urgently had to get to a subcontractor to produce the background of my booth at the Batibouw exposition. The connection broke several times, so the total data transfer added up to 111,8 MB. I was shocked when Proximus (my Belgian TELeCom Operator) billed an extra 7,8 EUR/Mb for that convenient ’service’ abroad. For 873 EUR I could have hired a taxi to drive a usb key from Cannes to Brussels. Nowadays, one flies a few round trips within Europe for that sort of budget… Before I could start foaming at this invoice, I was ignorantly surfing off the hotel wifi in London & Amsterdam, where identical rates were applied .

I was subscribed to a Vodafone Promixus Mobile Internet Anytime Plus data plan (43,38 EUR/month for 5 Gb). You got to love the marketeers that come up with these bullshit product names. All I really want is a Mobile Internet Anytime Anywhere Extreme data & voice plan. Unfortunately they haven’t launched that product yet… I thought to have activated all the international discount roaming options. I even informed upfront and their call center had advised me to stick to mobile operators that are affiliated with the Vodafone network. However despite these precautions, I was still blown away by the surcharges…

Yesterday, I had a meeting at the Belgacom Proximus headquarters in Brussel to get things sorted with my account managers (they work in duo’s now: one person for Belgacom fixed lines and another for Proximus mobile). Ironically, the trade unions were handing out these leaflets at their entrance (in Dutch & French), to warn their colleagues about the exorbitant data roaming surcharges common in their industry and how to ‘avoid bad surprises’ for your loved ones. Maybe it is time Telco’s start to educate all their customers on these issues and not just those who work there. Especially now that they teamed up with hardware vendors to push fashionable mobile devices to customers bundled with 3G subscriptions.
The innovative workaround Proximus found to settle my complaint, was to retro-actively activate another international option (named ‘Vodafone Mobile Internet Plus at 62 EUR/month) and to credit the balance (873 - 62 = 811 EUR Excl. VAT). So on top of my 200 EUR monthly voice bills, I now enjoy a monthly data plan costing 43 EUR (5 GB volume in Belgium) + 62 EUR (500 MB data roaming on Vodafone networks in Europe). Even with this extreme plan at 105 EUR/month, they are entitled to bill me an extra 3 EUR/MB outside the Vodafone network and a staggering 12 EUR/Mb outside of Europe.
I was told to be ‘lucky’ to have used the Vodafone networks, since many people are uniformed victims of these outrageous surcharges. Another customer who used a ‘free weather forecast widget’ on his mobile phone would update every 3 minutes over the data connection to download sunny or cloudy images with temperature indications for the next 3 days. Those Spanish weather forecasts had cost over 1.200 EUR! Apart from offering a delayed payment plan, there was nothing Proximus could do for that customer, because he was not on a Vodafone affiliated network. I can only hope he had a nice holiday with fabulous weather conditions.

My 6 Mobile Data Roaming Lessons:

1. You are on holiday, so dump the internet & ignore your e-mails.
2. If you are working like me and 1. is no option, you should at least configure your devices (Blackberry,Apple iPhone, HTC, PalmPre, Nokia, laptop, netbook, …) to prioritize (free) wifi. There are many wifi spot finders around. It is likely your holiday destination has free wifi spots to help you when that internet withdrawal syndrome turns you into a cold turkey
3. Wifi flat fees at hotels (typically 15 EUR/day or 50 EUR/week) are far below what your telco’s are charging and offer more bandwidth too.
4. Make sure you have deactivated all useless widgets, maps and automatic updates. These little buggers are using your data connection ‘in the background’ and spend your holiday budget faster than you can imagine.
5. “Go mobile, not broke” is the appropriate tagline to purchase pre-paid 3G data cards (similar the ‘old’  pre-paid SIM cards for voice and SMS abroad:  e.g Qik). These pre-paid card can be bought on-line (cheaper than the best roaming offer) or at the destination airport (more expensive). Feel free to suggest good providers in the comment section.
6. Only use that vicious mobile data roaming subscription plan as a connection of last resort and make sure to stay within the limits included in your roaming subscription plan. Don’t forget to monitor your usage and be well informed about the cost to avoid surprises upon return (up to 12 EUR/MB).

Have you been robbed in a similar way? Let me know which creative work-around your Telco found to ease the pain and to keep you a ‘happy’ customer?

@Viviane Redding: Since greedy telecom companies cannot seem to regulate their roaming behavior themselves, please cap the mobile data roaming charges within Europe as you did for SMS and voice calls.

Tags: Data Roaming, Mobile, Rant, Technology
Posted in Ranting, Technology | 6 Comments »