Telecomms: February 2008 Archives

I have an Irish mobile phone opertor mobile phone broadband package supplied by three which gives me 100 MB of data for 6 euros. Three are curently billing me for emails I send via IMAP even though it is not listed any where in their terms and conditions. I am vert familiar with telecomms and IP systems, and therefore can identify that IMAP is only a type iof interent data i.e. it uses a port number etc similar to all other broadband data.

Three have a problem explaining to me why they bill seperately for emails and to date have produced no supporting documentation. I have logged this with Comreg. They advised me to request a complaint ref no from three and if they wouldn't provide to obtain the customer services agents name. I emailed three cust support and they rang back, they wouldn't give me a customer complaint ref number and had great difficulty in accepting that I could notify them verbally that I had raised the complaint eventhough comreg advised me that I could. They asked me again to email the same email address with the details, which I did as a matter of courtesy. The ball however is their court and they have 10 days to come back to me with either a resolution or an explanation which points out exactly in their terms and conditions email messages are classified as a non broadband product. If they do not come back to me within 10 days Comreg will be persuing the matter with them.

This whole episode got me thinking that this practice may not be restricted to three. Are other mobile phone operators billing their customers for email eventhough they have mobile phone broadband packages? Do their terms and conditions stipulate that they can do this?

As consumers of technology that utilise microbilling we often let these things slip under the radar due to complaceny or lack of understanding.

Your feedback and comments on this would be welcome.

I am in the process of trying to decide if we should drop our land line and switch completely to VOIP. (We have wireless internet access) To kick start this analysis we need to change our cordless land line handset to one which will connect to both a land line and VOIP. Ideally the use of landline or VOIP would be made at the press of a button on the handset. Recomendations would be welcome.