Avoiding High Mobile Charges
Avoiding high mobile charges is something every business needs to focus on. Every month we have one or two customers who receive mobile bills far higher than they were expecting. There is always a logical explanation for it, perhaps someone else used the phone, they’d been on holiday or just went over their data limit. However, these charges are often excessive, especially if the charge relates to overseas data. Here are some examples of things to watch out for to avoid costly bills:
- Exceeding your data limit – users will often simply go over their data limit without knowing, thus running up additional costs. This is easily avoided by requesting a data cap or spend limit – contact your provider.
- Tethering – many customers use their mobile to enable other devices and other users to share their data allowance. This is fine unless the ‘tethered session’ takes you over the data limit, in which case the ‘session’ does not stop until the last user disconnects. If one or more of the users was watching a movie, for instance, this means you can run several Gigabits over the limit and any limits or caps in place will not activate until the last person disconnects.
- ‘Late Landing Traffic’ – most European update their UK partners (e.g. Vodafone, O2) daily with charges, but the further you go from home the longer it takes for the records to be updated. You could therefore go over your limit in say Dubai or USA but the charges rack up for three or four days until O2/Vodafone receive the charges and the spend cap kicks in, albeit it too late. The network operators have no way of reducing these ‘late landing charges’ and the result has often been a bill of several thousands of pounds.
There are all kinds of reasons customers receive additional mobile charges and we will always try to help where we can but we are limited by how sympathetic O2, Vodafone are to the individual case. However, there are some simple steps you can take to avoid high charges:
- Ensure you have a data limit or spend limit in place (bearing in mind the caveat above regarding tethering and late landing traffic)
- An alternative answer is to switch to an unlimited data tariff – prices have come down a lot so it may be worth considering
- Check that you can take your UK bundle to a particular non-EU country you are visiting, and just be VERY careful what you use.
- If you frequently make international calls from your mobile, enquire whether there is a bundle/bolt-on you can add to your account
- Check the country you’re visiting is included in your bundle and remember just because it was included last time you visited doesn’t mean it will be this time.
- For example, recently Turkey has been included in most EU bundles but from 1st June 2020 it leaves the EU bundle and becomes part of the “Rest Of World Zone 1” which will mean it will be a lot more expensive for all UK users visiting Turkey.
At LG Networks we help businesses with telecommunications – internet, data cabling, phone systems and mobiles. We simplify technology using plain English, with one point of contact for all services.
Please contact us to speak to one of our specialists on our main office number 01375 363263.
Stuart
