Posted: 29th Jul, 2009 By: MarkJ
A new survey has revealed that nearly three in four (78%) UK Mobile Broadband users’ risk incurring significant extra costs by unknowingly downloading more than their allocated data usage allowance. Some operators , such as O2 , charge up to £200 per GB (GigaByte) for exceeding the limit and Three (3) charges £100 per GB. Both send a text to the user when at the limit, and Three (3) disconnect the service when additional charges reach £50.
Data from the
MoneySuperMarket.com comparison site found that 24% of people don’t know if they have a download limit on their Internet service; Of those that claim they do know, over half (54%) of them don’t know what the limit is.
James Parker, manager of mobiles and broadband said:
"Dongle users are most at risk of incurring charges from exceeding download allowances as limits on dongles tend to be much lower than fixed line packages. Whilst the portability is great, users need to be aware that a dongles are most suitable for light users, fixed line is a better value option for heavy users."
Some 33% of people agreed limited packages provided a cheaper alternative to unlimited ones, and a quarter realised that limits stop heavy downloader’s abusing the network. However 30% felt that download limits are unfair.
It’s worth pointing out that some monthly contract services , such as T-Mobile , do not charge for extra usage but will seriously limit the services performance when you exceed the pre-set level. Likewise other mobile operators ( e.g. Vodafone ) allow you to buy extra top-up’s in blocks of 1GB or more, though this is reliant on the end-user being aware of their usage.