Ice, Mobile | Ice price warnings: – 100,000 to watch a movie

– can spoil the holiday for anyone and everyone. I think a lot of people don’t understand what he’s saying.

This is what Hugo Christian Munthe-Cas says. Upon arriving in Paraguay, Kaas receives a message about Ice prices in the country.

She said, among other things:

Welcome to Paraguay. Price info: Calls to Norway and local and reception: 12.50/min Data: 75/MB. Send SMS: 3.99 / SMS. All prices include VAT. Still a good trip. Ice greetings.

See an overview of prices for different mobile carriers in Overview More details in the box.

– It seems quite reasonable if you are not aware of the size of megabytes. But that price actually means that one gigabyte costs NOK 75,000, he says.

– If you were to watch a movie over the mobile network, it would cost you NOK 100,000, Munthe-Kaas points out.

Ice’s director of communications, Sebastian Storvik, confirms that the company has an automatic block per month of NOK 500 in data usage. In Paraguay, mobile data will automatically stop after just over six megabytes. This equates to about 1 minute of Snapchat videos.

On the other hand, customers can go over the cap if needed, so the amount of data — and costs — are without an upper limit, Storvik says.

Also read: Huge differences in prices: – Large amounts that you can use in other bills

Have you received surprisingly high mobile phone bills after you recently traveled abroad? Contact Nettavisen journalist Bjørge Bondevik at [email protected].

– Not clear at all

In recent years, Norwegians on vacation in Europe have become accustomed to being able to ‘roam like home’. Munthe-Kaas advises Norwegians to be very careful when traveling outside the EU.

He himself avoided the price shock in Paraguay, but had to pay NOK 400 for half an hour of phone use during a layover in Switzerland.

He claims that ICE is not clear enough because the price in Paraguay and similar countries is very high.

The message is not clear enough at all. My rhetoric asks how many people know how many megabytes are used per day, or how many megabytes are converted into gigabytes.

While many other companies offer data packages in most countries, Ice has no other choice but to offer mobile data at NOK 75 per MB — or NOK 75,000 per GB in Paraguay.

He worries that many people might go on a massive spree, while many more will go data-driven.

– If you want to find your way out, it isn’t always easy without data. Especially in countries where no one speaks English.

Easily accessible information

For its part, Storvik i Ice thinks the prices are clear enough.

– The customer is notified by SMS when he arrives in the country, and this information can be easily accessed on our website.

– Do you think customers understand what 75/MB really entails?

– We think most people understand this because it is very rare for us to hear about misunderstandings. If we say NOK 75,000 for 1GB, that too might be misunderstood by someone, assuming that 1GB must be a huge amount, he says.

Also read: We put the smartphone away for a week. One thing surprised us all

Mobile data: Big price differences

Mobile phone companies operate at very different rates for both data and call time outside the EU. If Munthe-Kaas had another mobile operator in Paraguay, he could surf the Internet at 97 percent less per megabyte than ICE offered.

Nettavisen randomly sampled six non-EU countries, plus Paraguay, based on companies ICE, Telia, Telenor and Talkmore.

The spreads are huge.

The numbers are mobile data rates per megabyte. The most valuable company in each country is highlighted.

Prices are taken from the respective companies’ websites on July 7, 2023.

NOK 7,500 for 1 hour of music

Ice is the most expensive in four countries out of seven, and the price differences are enormous in many cases. If you look exclusively at the price per megabyte, two examples of the price are as follows:

In Paraguay, one hour of streaming music (100MB) will cost NOK 7,500 with Ice, while it costs NOK 199 with Talkmore.

In Bali, Indonesia, 20 minutes of video on Snapchat (120MB) will cost NOK 4,500 with Ice, while Telia customers will end up being billed at NOK 300.

As mentioned earlier, Ice has an auto block of NOK 500, but this can be overridden if necessary. Talkmore also works with a similar system, but the new NOK 20,000 cap cannot be exceeded.

Telia and Telenor both have a daily cap of between NOK 49 and NOK 79 for between 50 and 100MB. When the daily limit is reached, the unit price per megabyte will also drop significantly.

And while Telenor, Telia, and Talkmore all offer data packages in all relevant countries, Ice only has a data package available in Switzerland.

Prioritize popular destinations

In other words, if you want to use mobile data outside the borders of the EU, you can save huge amounts by choosing the right mobile subscription.

Storvik i Ice says the company prioritizes popular travel destinations for Norwegians, and offers data packages for the ten most visited countries outside the EU.

– We have almost no clients for Paraguay, therefore we use third party roaming solution which is very expensive. In countries like Paraguay, we have a high cost price and little profit, he says.

Also read: Telia receives a failing grade from clients