When third year Nottingham University student William Harrison received the opportunity of a six-month work experience stint in Paris last September he enquired about mobile broadband through his current provider Orange when overseas. While there is some confusion as to the advice he was given by those in his local Orange shop he ended up using his mobile Internet broadband during his time in France only to receive a bill of almost £8000!
Despite the fact that the EU agreed a number of rule changes regarding Internet usage, and in particular mobile Internet usage, these have taken nine months to bring to fruition and will not go live in the UK until 1 March. These new rules would have seen Orange contact the customer to warn him of the impending large mobile broadband bill which he appears to have run up using the Skype online telephone system.
While there is some confusion as to what he was told at the time he enquired about using Orange broadband overseas, this is an example of how you need to be aware of any additional costs and usage limits on your mobile broadband package. While these “shock bills” will hopefully be a thing of the past when the new EU regulations come into play on 1 March we still need to be aware of the underlying cost of our service and how often we use the service.