SOME of Britain’s biggest mobile firms are charging their customers hundreds of pounds when they use the latest technology to watch films or TV on their handsets, even though others are offering the service for as little as £10 a month.

Michael Schaefer, 46, an IT specialist from Ealing, west London, was charged £950 in just four days by O2 after using his 3G (third generation) phone to view TV for just two hours.

3G phones offer high-speed access to the internet, allowing users to download TV, films and music to their phones while on the move. Firms have spent billions rolling out the technology across their networks and drumming up interest in the devices.

Schaefer connected his O2 mobile to his home TV with a device called a Slingbox, which uses a broadband link to allow programmes to be “streamed” directly to a high-speed mobile without having to wait for it to download. Slingboxes are available from Currys for £140.

He watched the US mid-term elections on CNBC on his mobile for about 45 minutes, costing him £285. On another occasion he watched CNN for 20 minutes, which cost him £188.

Had he used T-Mobile, he would have been charged no more than £27.50 a month, or £35 a month with the 3 network.

However, Schaefer was on an O2 tariff, which allows for only 100 kilobytes (kb) of free downloads, after which £3 is charged per megabyte (mb). However, his 3G phone is capable of downloading 385kb per second, suggesting he used up all his inclusive data allowance in the first second.

“I was shocked,” Schaefer said. “I didn’t realise it was costing me this much.”

After a lengthy letter to the operator, complaining that he was not aware of the charge and arguing that he was simply taking advantage of 3G technology, O2 eventually waived his fee.

“What’s the real point of offering us faster download speeds with 3G if you can’t then use the technology?” he asked.

“It seems we as customers can download more so the providers can charge more.”

O2 admitted that its technology was moving faster than its pricing structure, adding that a committee had been set up to investigate the issue. “Our technology has run away from our tariffs and we are taking action,” it said.

Chris Frost at Uswitch, a comparison website, said: “In the same way that broadband has opened the gates of the internet, 3G is at last opening up the realms of possibilities to mobile users, who can now use their phones to watch live TV or download movies.

“However, while they’ve got the technology right, the networks are failing to catch on to the ‘all you can eat’ pricing that is now the standard for broadband users. There’s a vast and complicated array of data tariffs, making it difficult for a customer to have any idea what they could be charged at the end of each month.

“The exceptions are T-Mobile’s high data tariff Web n Walk and 3, whose X-series tariffs innovatively package data with popular web services that users can enjoy without living in fear of their phone bill.”

The 3 X-series, launched at the beginning of this month, charges a flat £5 a month on top of the company’s standard tariff to allow customers unlimited downloads. A £10-a-month “gold” package, allows you to use Slingbox.

T-Mobile’s Web n Walk costs an additional £12.50 a month on top of an existing tariff for high internet browsing. With a Flext 20 package, the combined cost is £27.50 a month. It has a 3gb download limit — about three-quarters of the data on a standard DVD.

There are about 7m 3G phone users in Britain according to Mobileshop.com, an online retailer, but only 10% have tariffs allowing for unlimited downloads. Most providers either charge high rates for the amount of data downloaded or a premium for frequent usage. The Orange Panther 18-month contract, for example, costs £75 a month. O2’s business package, called O2 Data Max, costs £45 a month for high access. Both are subject to a download limit of 1gb a month.

Vodafone’s approved site, known as Vodafone Live, allows you to download certain content free, such as film clips and ring tones, but venturing outside this limit would cost £2.35 per mb — or £7.05 to download a 3mb MP3 music file, for example.

The O2 Active web portal allows users to download movie clips for as little as 35p. Go outside the approved site, however, and the standard charge of £3 per mb applies.

O2 denied that it was encouraging the use of 3G to download large files or stream data such as live TV, saying 3G was used for browsing small files, playing games and downloading ring tones.

“People’s expectations are still ahead of where the market is and where the technology is,” it said.

O2 claimed that the vast majority of its users did not use the internet on their mobiles extensively and that a 100kb free limit was sufficient.

A recent survey by Moneysupermarket, however, found one in seven people wanted to be able to download TV programmes to their mobiles and more than three-quarters said they would watch TV on their phones on long journeys.