Internet piracy?

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Sailing a mile or so off Tarifa yesterday, happily browsing the web to avoid conversation with shipmates when I get an SMS from my mobile provider: "Warning. You have used 6Mb of data, out of plan cost is £36."
Some mistake surely, but no. Apparently my phone switched connection from Orange ES to Internet at Sea mobile service (presumably satellite internet, definitely not wifi) on a passing ship without any indication or warning.
Fair play to 3 who, after half-heartedly drying to fob me off with a 50% refund coughed up for the full amount but there is nothing I can do to stop this happening again and they are emphatic that a repeat will not be refunded.
Any similar experiences?
 
Depending upon the model of phone you should be able to manually select the roaming network. It does mean you'll be in the same boat (no pun attended) as subs on that network (i.e. your phone won't connect to other networks in the visited country).

You probably had a strong argument against your provider anyway. Lots of EU rules on roaming charges within the EU.
 
lpdsn said:
Depending upon the model of phone you should be able to manually select the roaming network. It does mean you'll be in the same boat (no pun attended) as subs on that network (i.e. your phone won't connect to other networks in the visited country).

You probably had a strong argument against your provider anyway. Lots of EU rules on roaming charges within the EU.
Click to expand...

I can select provider but don't expect to have to. WRT EU roaming, not sure if thst appplies in territorial waters?
 
Quiddle said:
I can select provider but don't expect to have to.
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Hard lines then. Do you think people living in border areas all around the world haven't had this issue since roaming was first introduced? Manually selecting the network is the solution. If you eschew that your phone will pick the strongest signal from any network that will allow you to connect to it.

Never seem anything the excludes territorial waters from any EU roaming directive and I've worked on implementing a good few of them. It would be pretty much technically impossible to do so from a network prospective anyway, and although I'm sure something could be put on GPS enabled phones it wouldn't be hard to identify risks of unintend denial of service.
 
lpdsn said:
Do you think people living in border areas all around the world haven't had this issue since roaming was first introduced?
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A decade or so ago a Spanish lady living in Ayamonte spent much of a bill period unknowingly roaming across the river to Portugal. Her bill from Vodafibs was €76,000-odd, probably more than her flat was worth. They didn't back down on it until the local equivalent of trading standards intervened. (Not an urban myth: I met her.)
 
lpdsn said:
Hard lines then. Do you think people living in border areas all around the world haven't had this issue since roaming was first introduced? Manually selecting the network is the solution. If you eschew that your phone will pick the strongest signal from any network that will allow you to connect to it.

Never seem anything the excludes territorial waters from any EU roaming directive and I've worked on implementing a good few of them. It would be pretty much technically impossible to do so from a network prospective anyway, and although I'm sure something could be put on GPS enabled phones it wouldn't be hard to identify risks of unintend denial of service.
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Right. Based on that then there is a good business to be made equipping a van with satellite internet and parking up to fleece nearby residents.
 
I just experienced the terrestrial version of that. On asking Vodafone what an excess charge for non-European data on a daughter's phone was for while she was in Europe, I discover that certain high-altitude regions get their signal from satellites rather than from base stations, and that counts as non-European usage. So if you're skiing in Sweden, as she was, you get charged outside the European tariff!
 
macd said:
A decade or so ago a Spanish lady living in Ayamonte spent much of a bill period unknowingly roaming across the river to Portugal.
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Mobile provision in SW Scotland is a lot better now, but there was a time when from coastal districts between Dumfries and the Mull I would roam to Manx Telecom from what was then BT O2. Luckily they didn't charge extra in those days, but roaming onto Manx providers is not cheap nowadays and when I go there I find it cheapest to buy a Manx SIM.

Related warning: 01624 (IoM landline) and 07624 (IoM mobile) look as if they should be UK calls, but they are international and charged appropriately.
 
Quiddle said:
Right. Based on that then there is a good business to be made equipping a van with satellite internet and parking up to fleece nearby residents.
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You'd need to set up roaming agreements with the nearby residents' home networks. Not to mention getting a licence to operate a network. In fact, if you want to be a genuine satellite company you'll need a few satellites, so unlikely you'll find some bloke with a rocket that'll launch them for £20. I've never looked, but I don't think there are any virtual satellite phone networks, and even if there were the complexity of setting up one would cost many tens of millions. Other than that, good idea.
 
JumbleDuck said:
Related warning: 01624 (IoM landline) and 07624 (IoM mobile) look as if they should be UK calls, but they are international and charged appropriately.
Click to expand...

It really depends upon the home network and the arrangements between them and the Manx companies for charging. Not unknown for an operator to charge at a loss, but they do try to avoid it. However there's a lot of cost and complexity in managing one destination as a separate band, so I'd expect most operators would lump the IoM in with the EU. I don't even know off the top of my head whether the IoM has to count as an EU roaming destination. Whenever I've been involved it has always been in the same roaming band because it is too much hassle to treat it separately.

Were your experiences with a landline or mobile phone?
 
lpdsn said:
I'm pretty sure that because of the customs union with the UK the IoM will be subject to EU directives, so it should be cheaper now.
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That would be good. Twitter used to use an 07624 number as a text - tweet service, and many people found out that this was not the cheap option it seemed.

Even if the rates are modest, I believe that 01624 and 07624 are not normally included in bundled UK calls packages.
 
Brittany Ferries, and no doubt many others, use Vodafone Malta to provide their on-board phone service, which is not covered by the EU roaming rules.
 
I doubt it's anything to do with Malta, which is a full EU member and therefore subject to the same rules as any other.

More likely it's because of this:
"When travelling by ship or plane in the EU you can roam like at home as long as you are connected to a terrestrial (land-based) mobile network. If mobile services are provided via satellite systems, roam like at home no longer applies and you will be charged for non-regulated roaming services (no price caps)."

From: https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/internet-telecoms/mobile-roaming-costs/index_en.htm
 
My service provider has a feature called provider lock. When roaming it only allows me to connect to networks that have a roaming agreement with them. This avgoids the issue with getting charged large sums if connected to unfriendly networks... It can be set to on, off or prompt. Right now I am roaming in the UK without having to worry about the cost.

I find that Mobile services in Europe are way behind the times when compared to asia.
 
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