R84 000 for an album!

If you were a CellC customer travelling in the UK and wanted to download the Best of Neil Diamond album on iTunes, you would pay up to R84447.04.

That's enough to buy a second-hand car in South Africa. The album costs R79.99 in the shops.

A British traveller found on her return home from South Africa that she had spent a small fortune on a compilation album by the Sweet Caroline singer.

According to an article in The Daily Telegraph, 43-year-old holidaymaker Katie Bryan - an Orange mobile customer - was charged £8 (R140.72) per megabyte for data roaming, leading to the 326MB album costing her £2609.31 (R45897.76). After an appeal to the company, the price was reduced to £400 (R7036).

The Times compared the rates quoted on websites of South African network providers and found that:

The least a Cell C customer would pay for the complete Neil Diamond album while travelling in the US is R25431.26;

If travelling in India, a Vodacom customer would fork out up to R41728;

As an MTN customer travelling in India, Thailand, the UK or US, the most you would pay is R4564.

Independent telecoms researcher Samantha Perry said it was imperative that cellphone users paid attention to warnings by their service providers.

"Charges are very high and users need to take responsibility for their own costs as much as providers need to warn consumers of high charges through the channels they have," she said.

Perry said rates were negotiated among the operators, unless governed by regulations.

She advised users to buy a data prepaid SIM card while travelling.

"Also, take advantage of free public Wi-Fi where it exists - it's becoming common ," Perry said.

Additional reporting by © The Daily Telegraph