topic Unexpected charges in Sky Mobile

Unexpected charges

MissFifi84 — Fri, 01 Nov 2024 15:43:56 GMT

I have recently been charged for data roaming, on two mobile contracts , despite my data roaming being turned off on both devices as soon as I landed in the other country.
can someone please explain how this has happened? As it's £90 additional charges across both contracts!!!!!

Thanks

Re: Unexpected charges

TimmyBGood — Fri, 01 Nov 2024 16:12:35 GMT

@MissFifi84 wrote:

despite my data roaming being turned off on both devices as soon as I landed in the other country.
can someone please explain how this has happened?

Unfortunately it's quite possible for mobile phones to pick up terrestrial data from a considerable altitude: by definition it's clear air from there to the ground, and while they aren't intended to produce a vertical signal, cell masts broadcast for miles around them at surface level. During descent in particular you may have been flying within cellular range over one or more countries where £2 roaming doesn't apply for a significant length of time, and at several pounds per megabyte it doesn't take long to clock up an unpleasant bill.

Re: Unexpected charges

63johnw — Fri, 01 Nov 2024 15:50:58 GMT

Hi @MissFifi84 if you waited until arriving at your destination then your phones will have connected to the local network and if it's a rest of the world destination then that quickly eats up a lot of money. Looks like you reached the £45 limit on each phone that's set in your account settings. To avoid in future turn off roaming and mobile data in your settings before leaving the UK, also turn on flight mode then just activate WiFi when it's available in your destination country.