Passengers receiving or making mobile calls face hefty bills from Stena's "roaming" phone service
Passengers on Stena Line ferries are being warned to turn off their mobiles or face crippling charges that could see a 20-minute phone call cost £60.
The Scandinavian company, which runs 11 ferry routes around the British Isles, operates a mobile phone service that takes over once the ferry has left port, but charges users up to £3 a minute to make calls.
The service, provided on Stena's behalf by a firm called Maritime Communications Partner (MCP), works in the same way as overseas roaming. Once the boat is two miles offshore the service is switched on and most phones on board will automatically pick up the signal.
Stena Line says it has no influence on the pricing of mobile calls onboard as this is based on agreements between the mobile operators and MCP.
A leaflet onboard a ferry from Scotland to Northern Ireland, picked up by Guardian Money reader Conrad Smith from Newcastle, shows that charges are all in excess of £1 a minute. Outgoing calls from O2 phones are the cheapest at £1.20 a minute, while 3 customers are charged £3 a minute. Texts cost between 40p and 50p each.
Stena Line says mobile users will get a text message warning them of the cost of using the service, similar to those received when you enter a new country. However, someone taking a call on board might not have seen this message prior to answering and be unaware they are being charged more than a £1 a minute to receive the call.
Smith, a regular traveller, says that because the MCP signal is such a strong one it eclipses the customer's "home" signal from land. He thinks the price of the service is too high, but says mobile users on some routes can get around it by going out on deck to find their home operator's signal, but they may have to search for it manually.
A spokesperson for Stena Line says that, according to EU legislation, the MCP signal will only be available if the user's network becomes unavailable. "From our perspective, we believe that the SMS [text message] information from the operators in combination with the leaflets handed out at check-in and onboard, as well as the posters and information and announcements, is enough.
"Additionally, we offer free Wi-Fi to all our guests onboard every route, so customers can connect their devices and avoid any data roaming charges for using the internet."
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