Iayn Dobson, a computer technician from a suburb of Manchester, downloaded a 60-minute episode of the U.S. television show Prison Break last September using a 3G network and mobile info card. Wireless documents are expensive in Europe, but Dobson’s mistake was making the download while on vacation in Portugal.

That became clear when his monthly bill arrived from Yes Telecom, a subsidiary of Vodafone, the largest European mobile operator: pound(s)31,000, or about $61,000 — most of it for worldly data-roaming charges from the video download.

“Mr. Dobson knew he had downloaded a lot of goods but thought that went beyond the pale,” said Danielle Mestraud, Dobson’s lawyer at Farleys Solicitors in Manchester, where Yes Telecom is based. “What he felt was unfair was that at no point during the download could he determine how much he was paying. The system was simply opaque.”

Dobson’s case may be an exception, but incidents of similar high billing

are prompting European lawmakers that year to pursue limits on the price of cross-border mobile details. A bill limiting roaming charges for short text messages will be considered that autumn,
which could be expanded to include large-scale goods downloads made
by unwitting consumers like Dobson.

Given the attention that European policy makers have paid to the issue, some analysts were surprised that Viviane Reding, the European Union telecommunications commissioner, did not include price limits on data-roaming charges in a recent plan to limit cross-border fees for text messaging. Both she and the European Regulators Group, the advisory panel of the 27 EU national telecom regulators, said they wanted to give mobile operators a few more weeks to voluntarily bring down the charges before pursuing regulation.

Roaming fees for info have fallen by an average of 36 percent in the European Union by the past year, according to the European Commission, the…

Orginal post by Mike

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