I thought it was as well - but I have looked at the bill and they have charged me £1 per day even when she has only used it at home. I have lookedat the settings on her phone and she is definitely connected to the wireless router which is Virgin.
I have 'Googled' it & it appears that they do make a charge for this. It seems completely non-sensical and a complete rip-off.

That sounds like the package she is on is charging a £1 a day for data access over the mobile network whether she uses it or not. It has nothing to do with any data access over you wi-fi network. Have you checked the log on the phone for those days to check there is no data access over the mobile network?

I've just checked my bill - since she stopped using the wireless last week there has been no charge so they are definitely charging me when she is connected to our wifi and it's not a standing charge.
I've double checked her tariff - its a 24 month contract with phone for £15 per month 100 mins & unlimited texts. No data bolt-on available! So looks like I'm stuffed.

Your daughter surely went out on the days that she used wifi at home? In which case, with apps such as email/facebook/weather they would be connecting up in the background using the 3g connection. Unless this is always switched off, a charge will be generated by O2.

I don't understand why my advice doesn't appeal to you. Given that you are willing to pay £21 a month (£15 package plus £6 data bolton), my advice can actually save you money, get you more data than you would get with O2, get you more minutes than you would get with O2 and you would be out of contract.

£21 x 23 months = £483

£10 x 23 months = £230
Maximum possible cost of buying out contract is: £345
Total cost of switch over: £575

So the additional cost of doing what I suggest is a maximum of £46 extra per year i.e. £3.83 more per month than what you're willing to pay O2. That of course assumes you have to pay the full amount and not the lower early termination fee you mentioned earlier on in the thread. If the cost of buying out the contract is £250 as you mentioned before then there'd be no reason not to make the jump.


Giffgaff is a sister company of O2. Both O2 and Giffgaff are owned by Telefonica of Spain.

I'm getting fed up with 02 myself, not so much the charges but the poor internet connections, i keep getting the http was interrupted by the host messages, & slow loading pages.

The problem is, i've got more than £100 in credits as i'm on the Text & Web bolt on taffifs, & i want to keep my number, i'm on PAYG.

Thank you - it is sensible advice. The thing is that really, she can easily use her laptop for the internet - it was just a convenience to be able to do it on her phone instead.
I've learned a lot from this though - and still don't really understand how there can be any cost involved in accessing your own Wi-fi which is already paid for - perhaps I'm just too old for the technological generation!

No mobile company in there right mind is going to charge you for using a wi-fi hotspot, and if they are then it's a mistake and should be refunded.

Having read this thread, I am almost certain the phone is using mobile internet to update something (a facebook app) when the phone is out of range of wi-fi, or before the phone has logged onto wi-fi while in the house.

You don't mention what the phone is, but the easiest thing to do is to disable the mobile internet so it can never access the web of it's own accord therefore meaning it can only access the web via wi-fi and thus free of charge.

It would be easy to check if only they were to look at the usage log on the phone.

I did check that she was definitely connecting via the wifi- I disconnected the wifi and then tried to log the phone on to the internet and it didn't work. Plus the wifi network is showing on the phone as 'connected' and shows the name I have given the router.

Does anyone know for definite that O2 are not supposed to charge for wi-fi connections?

She definitely only ever connected whilst in my house and in range of the wifi.

Its a Samsum Galaxy mini phone!
Last edited by scornedwoman : 03-05-2011 at 14:18

Given your last post, I'd get in touch with o2 then - I have never been charged for access my wi-fi router (or any other) in all the times I've had wi-fi phones.

Not only do none of the networks charge for using your own WiFi, none of them can even tell that you are using your own WiFi. O2 can't charge for it as they have no idea you are using it.

Worth getting an app like 3G Watchdog or NetCounter from the Android Market - they will show how much you are using across your home WiFi versus O2's 3G.

Also have a look in the settings and see if mobile data is switched off. I suspect it isn't. The phone will connect to O2 every time she leaves the house.

Still not got back on what the usage log on the phone says.

Out of interest, how do you go about finding the usage log on an Android phone?

No idea. I am a life-long Nokia owner. On my current phone it is Menu -> Log -> Usage

Well then, as far as I can tell, after having had an Android phone since November 2009, there is no usage log similar to what you're talking about so that's probably why the OP hasn't been back to you about it.

OP - 3G watchdog is free from the Android Marketplace and will keep track of how much mobile internet you're using. Worth installing just to see if there is any movement there.

You're completely right that there should be no cost from O2 for logging on to your own WiFi. The best explanation is that there is a bug in the mobile phone.

There are two kinds of bug relevant: 1) even when you enable WiFi in the phone and connect to your home network the phone as a whole carries on using the mobile data connection (and there's no way tell it's doing that).

2) Some app or something on the phone is using mobile data in spite of the WiFi connection.

Perhaps the phone is using cellular triangulation (working out your location based on distance from various mobile cell towers) - that would use data.

What you need to do is disable the mobile data connection on the phone completely. She will still be able to call and text but then all data will have to go through the WiFi which doesn't cost any extra.

On mine, and other Android phones of friends and family (all HTC devices, however) once WIFI is activated and attached to then all data goes through WIFI apart from GPS, which may also be on in the background of the OPs phone. If mobile internet is left activated it will only switch back to that once out of range of the WIFI.
So, if the OP is sure that mobile internet is switched off then maybe they should check GPS as well?

GPS itself will only use internet data if using an application like Google Maps that requires map data.

From what has been said before the £1 billing thing sounds like an error on O2's part.

As previously stated if WiFI has been enabled then Mobile Internet will not be used.

To completely disable Mobile Internet, you can remove the APN. Even if you or your daughter toggles Mobile Internet on by accident there will then be no valid settings for the phone to connect to the internet.

To do this go to Settings -> Wireless & Networks -> Mobile Networks -> Access Point Names. Then tap on the APN, mine is named "3". Press the Menu button and select Delete APN.

Occasionally you may have multiple APN so remove them all.

Thank you - I have disabled the data transfer facility. Don't know how to check the log though! Will also do as you have suggested above & will report back to you all in a couple of days when hopefully she will be happily using the wifi free of charge. Thanks everyone for all your help & advice!
Last edited by scornedwoman : 03-05-2011 at 22:54

When I (very briefly) owned an android handset, it had a very nasty habit of turning the wifi off when it was asleep (possibly to glean an extra 2 seconds of battery life from its 30 second battery) meaning any background checking of email, social networks and the like was then done over the 3G network even though I was at home and in range of my wifi network. Something similar may be happening here.

As others have said completely crippling the APN and/or turning mobile data off will resolve the problem if you don't want to change tariff to allow the addition of a data bolt on