The competition watchdog has begun investigating reports 3G mobile phone users are being trapped into paying exorbitant fees when they use their phone to browse the web.
In the wake of the rise of a new generation of mobile phones which, like the iPhone 3G, allow fast web browsing is phone companies have been accused of misleading users with the ease of access, and then slapping them with high excess usage fees.
As with most broadband plans, download limits apply to all mobile internet usage, but the set allowance has not kept pace with the blistering browsing speeds the latest smartphones are capable of.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has today warned users that most plans come with a only a small data allowance, then charge consumers huge fees for every megabyte of excess usage.
ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel said the watchdog had this recently informed telcos of the concerns about the potentially misleading plans.
"The ACCC is particularly concerned that consumers may be misled if they are not made sufficiently aware that their data allocations can be exceeded - at significant cost."
"We have asked carriers to advise how they intend to deal with this issue and what information they will be providing to consumers."
Choice spokesman Christopher Zinn told Fairfax that phone companies were not doing enough to let people know about the traps involved when their usage limit is exceeded.
"There's no doubt there is a lot of emphasis on the bells and whistles but not on the dollars and cents, particularly in terms of the data charges," he said.
"Consumers need to be very aware of how the charging works and how ... even using YouTube can prove incredibly hungry in terms of the data charges it can rack up."
Overseas customers enjoy much higher browsing limits, with Apple's US carrier partner, AT&T, is offering iPhone 3G customers unlimited downloads, compared to maximum download limits of 3GB for Telstra, 2GB for Optus and 1GB for Vodaphone.
However the maximum usage limits only applied for Australian customers on the most expensive plans.
Telstra's cheapest iPhone plan includes a measly 5 megabytes of data, barely enough to visit two web pages.
