Mobile phone roaming fees have again made headlines after a UK man has been charged £11,000 ($21,852) for downloading four episodes of TV sitcom Friends.  The downloads – which were initiated while in the UK and free under the user’s “unlimited” cellular broadband – were continued after the unnamed businessman travelled to Germany, automatically resuming but on the roaming networks per-megabyte data rate.  Vodafone has issued a statement claiming it warns customers of exceeded data quotas, but admitted that it can take longer to do so if the user is overseas. 

“Sending a text message or downloading data in another country should not be substantially more expensive than at home.  Higher retail charges abroad must be justified or they will have to disappear”Viviane Reding, European Union commissioner for information, society and media

Industry regulator Ofcom has announced it will be “looking to take action”, and the organisation is already looking at pushing through a ruling that would force greater parity between home and roaming rates for SMS messaging and data.

Vodafone are yet to confirm whether they will be charging the full £11,000 amount or not.