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by Broadband Genie
It’s natural to want to stay up to date with your social media channels, the sports results or your favourite soap while you’re on holiday. It’s also possible now that U.K. carriers are enabling dongles and smartphones for mobile broadband roaming. It’s also potentially expensive. Extremely expensive.
Mobile broadband roaming isn’t included in U.K. data plans and if you want to take the internet with you, you’ll need a bolt on from your carrier. Past cases have seen some Brits return from their holidays to ‘bill shock’ running into tens of thousands of pounds.
Image by Tele2s
The root of it is the sheer expense born of a lack of competition in the market. And without a roaming data plan, you’re looking at costs of anything from £1.25 to £7.50 per MB. If you’re watching YouTube for 30 minutes on your laptop – it’s around 30MB of data – you’ll be looking at anything from £37.50 to £225. Yes, you read that correctly.
Fortunately, the EU commission has introduced a €50 cap on roaming in the EU. After about £45 worth of data you will be cut off. Unfortunately, if you’re paying £7.50MB you’re not going to get much for your £45.
Do’s
- Do call you carrier before you leave and find out what you’ll be paying to use your dongle abroad. Some dongles require unlocking and some pay as you go dongles aren’t enabled for roaming.
- Do specify where you are going as each carrier prices each country differently.
- Do find out if your hotel has free wifi, it could be a better option.
- Do purchase a roaming data plan and ask how long you’ll be able to surf.
- Do switch to a light browser that compresses data, or click on ‘text only’ to exclude images and video.
- Do lock your dongle if you’re worried the kids will use it when you’re relaxing by the pool.
- Do identify the nearest internet cafe if you really have to watch Eastenders.
Don’ts
- Don’t assume that a quick facebook status update, or a few minutes on a photoblog won’t impact your bill. Images are large data files.
- Don’t forget to purchase your roaming data plan and then tell you carrier it’s not your fault. They won’t care.
- Don’t leave your dongle lying around. If it’s stolen, you’ll be liable for the costs incurred, just as if it were a mobile phone.
This is a guest article from Broadband Genie, the online consumer portal for researching broadband and mobile broadband.
Hey is it true that there is a new brand that provides mobile interent for travelers. The names that ring a bel are Botinger & Roi and Vodafone. Is this true?