Dongle surfers unaware of limits
Costly excess download fees uncovered
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Blighty’s mobile web users are unaware of the low download limits normally applied to dongle-based tariffs, and risk incurring surprise costs if they exceed them - new research has concluded.
Opium Research quizzed just over 2000 UK-based adults recently – on behalf of website Moneysupermarket, and discovered that 24 per cent didn’t know if they had a download limit on their service.
But of those that did claim to know that a download limit was in force on their mobile internet service, over half – 54 per cent – admitted they had no idea what the limit, such as 4GB per month, was.
James Parker, Manager of mobiles and broadband at Moneysupermarket, said that that download limits on dongles “tend to be much lower” than the caps imposed on fixed-line packages.
For example, O2 charges customers £200 per GB when they exceed their download limit. Network operator 3 charges £100 per GB exceeded, the report added.
It’s worth noting that both firms will send customers a text message to inform them that they’re at their designated download limit.
While the download excess fees would likely put a small dent in some pockets, 30 per cent of those quizzed still thought current download limits are fair. ®
COMMENTS
O2 dongle's
I did some research about a year ago into the pricing of these usb modems with O2 mobile internet. Not sure if the figures are the same today.
Usage pricing over the limit:
10p per MB
Using the dongle abroad, limits dont even apply.
its £6 per MB
So one 10MB e-mail will cost you around £60
Now with the firmware updates, 7.2meg BB you can go over the limit alot quicker :D
Say bye to your beer tokens!
Vodafone
I've just got a PAYG Vodafone dongle. At £15 a gig, it's more expensive for usage than some, but given that you can top up as much as you like (in multiples of £15), rather perversely for usage exceeding even the most generous contract bundles, it may actually be one of the more cost effective options. For me it's great because my usage will be very sporadic - charging is true PAYG rather than the £1-a-day type offerings from other networks, and there's effectively no expiry on the top-ups.
£1/MB
Got an O2 contract dongle for the family last christmas cos they don't have a phone line and can't get one. First month they went 250MB over and I nearly shat when I saw the bill. Got a refund and bumped it up to the next contract but it gave me a hell of a fright.
Woman I spoke to said they used to charge 10p/MB but had recently bumped it up to £1/MB. With the recent repeated downtime on top of that something tells me O2 might just be having capacity issues.
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