Take YouTube on your dream holiday – for £1,000 per hour

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Despite EC law forcing UK mobile operators to cap data roaming bills at 50 Euros (£45), holidaymakers travelling outside the EU are still in danger of running up massive charges reaching to thousands of pounds, warns comparison website Broadband Genie.

United Kingdom, 7th July 2011 (PressReleasePoint)-- Mobile broadband roaming prices in the EU can still be very high, at anything up to £3 per MB, but the cap stops things getting out of control. Outside the EU, prices can go as high as £7.50 (T-Mobile) or £8 (Orange) per MB. As streaming YouTube videos is estimated to use around 130Mb per hour that could be more than £1,000 per hour!

Popular destinations such as the Caribbean, New Zealand, Turkey, Australia and India often into the most expensive zones for data, depending on which mobile operator you are with.

Broadband Genie editor Chris Marling said: “While their websites proclaim the EU cap as 'great news for travellers', many UK operators only impose it where they are forced to – in EU countries. Anyone travelling outside, even in the rest of Europe, needs to make themselves and their families aware of the very real possibility of bill shock.

“Internet use in the UK is taken for granted by many, especially as we have some very generous – even unlimited – data deals available, both on mobile broadband and home broadband. It's hardly surprising that some travellers don't consider the consequences of using the service abroad.

“We say it to our site visitors every year, but we really wish we didn't have to – we see no reason why all the UK's mobile operators haven't done the honourable thing and applied the data roaming cap across all of their data roaming charges. If they don't do it voluntarily, maybe it is time for Ofcom to step in.”

ENDS

NOTES TO EDITORS

Broadband Genie is the UK's leading independent broadband, mobile broadband and smartphone comparison website, providing consumers with an unbiased source of information on prices and contracts and allowing them to compare providers in an independent environment. Broadband Genie was launched in March 2004 as the first dedicated consumer comparison site for broadband, while Mobile Broadband Genie was the first independent mobile broadband comparison site, launched in October 2007. The sites were combined in 2010, with the addition of smartphone comparison. The site is one of the most popular in its field, regularly featuring in the national press.