Bahrain’s telecom watchdog has launched an investigation into 'unfair' data roaming charges levied by mobile phone operators, after some customers racked up bills totalling thousands of dinars while overseas.

The Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (TRA) said it was reviewing national policy following a surge in complaints from the public during the first quarter of this year, reported the Gulf Daily News (GDN), our sister publication.

It revealed 12 customers alone ran up BD30,000 ($79,139) in roaming charges between them, with one user facing a bill for almost BD13,000, and called for operators to be more transparent about fees.

“During the first quarter of this year not only did we notice an increase in the number of consumer complaints related to roaming cases, but also an increase in the amounts being billed to consumers as a result of using mobile roaming,” TRA consumer affairs director Shaikh Abdulla bin Humood Al Khalifa said in a statement yesterday.

“One of the cases that is being currently investigated has a value of BD12,800.”

The TRA last year urged Bahrain's telecom companies to impose a maximum data roaming threshold for customers who were travelling abroad to prevent them unwittingly accumulating massive phone bills.

It suggested issuing warnings to customers who exceeded a certain amount, as well as measures such as suspending services for those who reached a certain limit.

“It is completely unacceptable and unfair that consumers do not receive the adequate level of transparency regarding the cost and volume of their usage of mobile roaming services,” said Shaikh Abdulla.

“We are putting all of our efforts to resolve those cases in hand and studying the implementation of additional regulatory measures to ensure that consumers are notified when they're about to reach their limits to prevent them from incurring additional charges.”

Data roaming charges are applied to anyone who uses a mobile phone or tablet while abroad to browse the Internet, download video or use applications such as Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, WhatsApp or e-mail.

Charges are measured per megabyte and differ from company to company, both locally and internationally.

A person using data roaming in the UK could be charged between 800 fils and BD7 per megabyte, depending on which UK provider they connect to.

In Italy, charges range from BD3 to BD5 per megabyte, while in France it costs between BD5 and BD7 per megabyte.

However, in Thailand it could cost from BD2.5 to more than BD10 per megabyte.

This means someone who downloads a five minute, high-quality video (around 50 megabytes) in Thailand could be charged as much as BD500 in roaming fees.

The same five-minute video could cost between BD40 and BD350 in the UK.

The TRA has come up with the following recommendations to avoid racking up massive data roaming charges by customers while overseas.

Turn off data roaming and check roaming rates of the country you are visiting before using data.

Regular travellers should choose the service provider that charges the least, or purchase a prepaid plan in the country of travel.

When roaming, customers should manually select the network they want to use, as the 'automatic network selection' might connect them to a more expensive network.

Be selective about which calls you answer, as you will be charged for all incoming and outgoing calls while roaming.

If you turn on data roaming, pre-plan downloads and application use, be aware that applications requiring your GPS location can be expensive. - TradeArabia News Service