Suggestions that O2 and 3 are taking advantage of customers who unknowingly exceed their mobile broadband download limit by hitting them with punitive charges have been dismissed as wide of the mark.

Last week a broadband price comparison site stated that O2 and 3’s charges for exceeding mobile broadband download limits of 19.6p and 10p per MB respectively are leaving customers who do not heed them facing unexpectedly high bills. Furthermore, a representative of the company said that because of these high charges O2 and 3’s bundles are really only suitable for light or occasional mobile broadband users and added that information about their pricing plans is often too hard to find.

However, the credence that can be afforded to the remarks has been refuted by 3’s recent revamping of its offers. This saw the introduction of a mobile broadband deal which allowed users a 15G download allowance for just £15 per month when they sign up for a 24-month contract online. This is enough for around 20 hours of standard use every day or up to 2,000 e-mails and would consequently mean that the chances of exceeding your monthly limit would be very slim. 3 claims that 97 per cent of its customers never exceed 15GB of usage per month.

Meanwhile, the suggestion that O2 is also seeking to profit from obfuscating its terms of use is also in question. This is evident in the fact that it is O2’s policy to notify all customers who are coming near to their download limit via text messages.

In the case of its Pay As You Go mobile broadband deals, an SMS message is sent out when there is 150MB remaining. On its Pay Monthly 3GB and 10GB deals, meanwhile, a text message is sent to customers when they have 1GB of their limit remaining. Additionally, all O2 customers are provided with software which enables them to closely monitor their use and information about its terms and conditions is clearly displayed on the company’s website.