In a third case of staggering sums billed for "unlimited" Internet access reported this week, a French emergency-room doctor from Fontainebleau beats all records with a €159,212 (US$237,417) bill. The telephone-number-sized bill covers one month's use of an unlimited 3G dongle on Orange's network; the beleaguered Dr <name>Jean Spadaro</name> has been battling this for six months.

"To begin with I thought it was a joke", said <name>Spadaro</name>, confirming a story from l'Observateur du Valenciennois; The same newspaper that revealed last week a similar case — <name>Eric Gernez</name>, a café owner in Petite-Forêt near to Valenciennes — who received a bill for €45,000. <name>Christophe Aupy-Fargues</name>, head of an insurance brokerage firm in Saint-Herblain, west of Nantes, and another unlimited 3G dongle user, confirmed to Ouest-France on Monday the blocking of payment on a bill for €39,500 demanded by Orange.

<name>Spadaro</name> claims France Télécom (Orange's parent company) never explained to him that the "unlimited" package only related to the time spent surfing on the Internet — not the volume of traffic — limited to one Gigabyte per month.