O2's £200 per GB data fee "a deterrent"

 

Gallery

By Barry Collins

Posted on 29 Jul 2009 at 17:00

O2 says it's charging mobile broadband customers £200.70 for every gigabyte of excess data to act as "a deterrent".

The company has by far the highest excess data fee of any of the mobile broadband providers.

3 charges over £102.40 for every excess gigabyte although it caps charges at £50 before disconnecting. Vodafone charges £15 and Virgin and Orange both charging £14.95.

T-Mobile is the only one of Britain's big five mobile networks that doesn't charge, preferring instead to warn users and encourage heavy users to move to an alternative package.

The excess charges are particularly worrying given that three quarters of mobile broadband users either don't know their data download limit or didn't even know a cap existed, according to a survey by Moneysupermarket.com.

When asked to defend it's data charge, O2 claimed it was "used as a deterrent and to make sure that others using the network had a good experience," according to a report on the BBC.

"Very few of our customers go over their limits," added a spokesman. "We text them when they are at 50% of the usage, and again at 90% and again if they go over. We keep them well-informed and people understand our pricing structure."