€46k mobile bill in country mix-up

A MAN living near the Belgian border has been hit with a €46,000 bill for inadvertently connecting to the wrong country's mobile network.

Eric Gernez, who runs a café near Valenciennes - about 10km from the border - has complained to Orange about the mammoth bill for accessing the web on his laptop using a 3G modem.

Orange said it was investigating the incident, which could have arisen because the device picked up a mobile internet connection from Belgium instead of France.

Mobile operators charge hefty fees for "data roaming" - using the internet abroad on a mobile connection.

Mr Gernez told his local paper, L'Observateur du Valenciennois that he could not afford to pay and had no reason to believe that his computer was not using the French network.

Orange said the bill had been suspended pending an investigation. It has not yet been formally written off.

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