Batelco alert on data roaming charges
Manama, December 5, 2012
Batelco, Bahrain’s leading mobile services provider, has initiated a campaign to help their customers to avoid high data roaming charges while they travel internationally.
Batelco has noticed that with the increasing popularity of smartphones which support the use of many applications that use data roaming, some of its customers are unwittingly running up big bills while they travel outside of Bahrain, a statement said.
Although customers receive automated messages with full details of the roaming rates charged by the local providers for voice, SMS and data as soon as they land in a new destination, it seems that some customers do not keep track of their data usage and get upset by their bills afterwards, it said.
“Therefore, Batelco is introducing a new automated messaging service that will alert the customer when he/she has reached a data usage bill of BD30, BD80 and BD200 and the roaming data usage notification counter will be reset on the first day of every month,” Batelco said.
The company also said customers who have mobile packages which include free data package should also be aware that the free data allowances are only applicable for local usage and do not apply while roaming.
Also, the customers’ credit limits do not apply during roaming so it is possible to exceed any pre-set credit limit while roaming internationally, it said.
Batelco general manager Media Relations Ahmed Al Janahi stressed that if customers prefer not to use data whilst roaming, they must turn off data roaming on their handsets as soon as they leave Bahrain.
“If data roaming remains active, even if the customer does not use the email or browser, many of the applications on a smartphone continue to update in the background and such activity uses data continuously,” he said. – TradeArabia News Service
