PAYG charges at a UK beach

[Apollo11]

I live in Norfolk UK and I use Three PAYG on my Samsung phone. I just went to the beach at Wells-next-the-Sea.  I was amazed to receive a text from Three telling me that it looked like I was on a ship and would be charged £3/min to make a call and £1.25/min to receive a call, 50p to send SMS and £6/MB of data!!!

I queried this with Three support when I got home and they said I must have connected to a "maritime network".  They then told me that, being on the beach, I would have been "near a border".  Last time I looked, the North Norfolk coastline wasn't particularly close to any borders and there wasn't a single ship in sight, so I have no idea why I would have connected to a maritime network.

I've visited many coastal areas of the UK (including Scottish Islands) and have never encountered this before.  I wouldn't expect anywhere on mainland UK to be considered a "maritime network".  Has anyone else experienced this?

[JonathanB]

Hi @Apollo11,

I'm really sorry for any misunderstanding on the part of our advisors. Some cruise ships and ferries have these maritime connections, that are basically roaming networks that connect via satellite and have high roaming rates.

In a port, coastline or a beach you may pick these up, so it's not really anything to do with borders, although you can pick up signal across the Irish Border, between Turkey and Greece, and I have seen it even happen between Morocco and Spain! Particularly where there's open waters signals can travel exceptionally far when there's little interference.

The best advice I can give is to leave roaming/data roaming off in your settings till you need it. Have you been able to view your bill, did you get any notification of any charges, or just that first text that you'd picked up signal from a ship? If this has incurred any costs on your account, please let me know and I'll get you more help.

Thanks,
Jonathan

[sc1999]

I have heard that North Norfolk is thinking of declaring independence and then roaming would apply.

[Apollo11]

Ha... Brexit2 😂