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People living, visiting and working along the North Norfolk (England) coast recently ran into an unusual problem with mobile roaming after their mobile phones began connecting to the ‘Maritime‘ network. The seamless change meant that locals ended up being hit with high roaming charges for calls and data usage, as they were no longer connected to a domestic network.
In the past, there have occasionally been cases where people living in certain parts of the UK, such as Dover (Kent), have seen their mobile phones automatically connect to a mobile network in nearby France (e.g. certain atmospheric conditions, in the right location, can make French signals stronger than domestic ones). If you aren’t aware of this occurring, then it can lead to problems with dramatically inflated bills for calls, texts and 4G / 5G data (mobile broadband).
However, such issues would not normally be a risk for those on the North Norfolk coastline, which is too far from other countries. But according to the BBC News (credits to Chris for spotting), residents in the area have been left fuming over expensive mobile bills after their phones started roaming on to a Maritime network.
Mobile operators will send a message to warn when this happens, but such things are easily overlooked, and then you have to correct for it too (not so easy, until you move away from the area or manually select the network). As a result, some people have been charged ridiculous sums, such as £13 a minute for data or £3.35 a minute for calls. Somewhat more expensive than domestic UK tariffs.
North Norfolk MP, Steff Aquarone, said:
“This is not good enough. People need the clarity and reassurance they are not going to get charged an international fee just for using their phone on the cliffs of our beautiful county.”
On the one hand, some mobile operators, such as EE, have said that they may be able to refund customers who have been incorrectly charged. But the BBC’s piece seems to focus more on the fallout and less on identifying the cause, which would perhaps have been easier if they’d mentioned some dates and times.
As above, Norfolk is not near enough to any other foreign landmasses to be able to receive a domestic mobile signal from abroad. The culprit in this case is thus likely to be a ship sailing near the coast. Many Ferries and Cruise ships, which are often equipped with Satellite linked Maritime mobile networks, tend to only deploy these indoors or will disable them when close to port/shore, precisely to avoid this sort of issue.
The onboard Maritime networks they deploy will often also be using small, low-power cellular base stations (aka – picocells). But these are usually only capable of providing wireless network coverage over a very limited area, usually less than 200 metres, for both indoor and outdoor environments. One possibility is that a ship could have been running these at a higher power than would normally be allowed.
As a general rule, it’s almost always wise to turn ‘Data Roaming‘ off on your mobile phone / SIM profile, at least until you need it (e.g. when travelling abroad to a supporting country). But unfortunately, the same flexibility doesn’t typically extend to calls and texts (roaming is a core part of how mobile networks work), although mobile operators may allow you to disable international roaming via their App or Account portals.