Smartphone data abroad.

O2 cap your data at £40, after warning you via text at £20.
Surf away!

randyrat wrote:O2 cap your data at £40, after warning you via text at £20.
Surf away!

That is Nearly correct.
The standard charge is £3 per mb and once you hit £20 you are warned. Then once you have used £50 you will not be charged anymore. But if you continue to use data they will switch it off.

So on the standard plan you would get about 19mb for your £50! That is crap.
Why wouldn't you sign up for the plan that charges £1.50 a day for 15mb?

Incidentally I checked my bill and they only charged me 1.25 a day...not sure why.. :-)

Snapzzz wrote:

Incidentally I checked my bill and they only charged me 1.25 a day...not sure why.. :-)

Because the other 25p is the VAT and will probably be in a different total :lol:

The one issue which bugs me with these add ons, is that once you sign up, your data cap is removed, potentially leading to horrendous bills if you are unfamiliar with the way your phone works.

Snapzzz wrote:

TowerBridge Andy wrote:

Snapzzz wrote:
If you are like me and cannot survive without your iPhone (other phones are available)

Like what?? :lol:

Yeah sorry, there is no substitute for the iPhone

HTC Desire HD is a substitute :)

Far Queue wrote:

Because the other 25p is the VAT and will probably be in a different total :lol: .

But that would be £1.20 then surely?

Far Queue wrote:
The one issue which bugs me with these add ons, is that once you sign up, your data cap is removed, potentially leading to horrendous bills if you are unfamiliar with the way your phone works.

That cannot really happen.
If you go over 15mb then they warn you, if you do it again they automatically move you to a £5 a day tariff for 50mb a day (thats a good deal) and on top of that everybody has a maximum cap of £120 for data in a month.

if you are using more than 50mb a day then you are not skiing enough!

boo_yay wrote:

HTC Desire HD is a substitute :)

Not in my opinion

I reset my statistics before every trip.

On the iPhone it's done by going to -

Settings - General - Usage - Cellular Usage. The Reset button is at the bottom of that page.

I will be resetting it every day under the plan Snappzz alerted us to.

A useful app is Onavo. It shrinks (don't ask me how) the amount of data you use whilst browsing. Within the app it will give you a rundown on how much data is has saved, quite surprising as I haven't noticed anything missing form the browsing experience since I've had it. It is now available for Android as well. www.Onavo.com

Whilst in Budapest at the end of December I received the usual welcome text giving me costs of calls, texts and browsing, £3 per MB. 2 Days later I got a text telling me I was browsing outside Europe and would be charged £6 per MB. A day later after 1MB of usage I got a text stating I had reached £20 worth of usage. I took screenshots of my usage after that to argue my case with O2. When I rung them ready for a fight I was told that these were a glitch in the system and my total charges outside the UK were £3.75. It has made me a little wary and I will definitely be watching what I use from now on.

Thanks for the iCloud tip Snapzzz. That could have caught me out.

I'm sure these phone operators are making a mint on data roaming abroad. I switched on data roaming (iphone) on the 1st day for a short while and KAPOW! £20 spent in a matter of a few minutes.

Fortunately our apartment hosts generously gave us a dongle to use with our laptop and we were able to check weather/converse with our children on facebook etc in the evening for free.