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.


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.