Sick of sky-high bills when you use your mobile phone overseas? You're not alone, and with the increasing use of the internet on phones, the bills are growing larger, the Age reported this week.

The issue of fat global roaming charges has made its way to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which has found that tighter regulation of mobile phone carriers may be the only solution.

At present each network negotiates access with networks overseas, with the home telco paying hefty fees to the foreign carrier, charges that are passed on to consumers.

But a new report from the OECD - which includes most developed countries - proposes that governments around the world agree to regulate the wholesale price that the telcos charge each other to bring them closer to the actual cost of delivering the service.

The report found prices to be ''unreasonably high'' around the world, blaming high wholesale charges, lack of competition and lack of consumer awareness of alternatives.

It said that more competition was not the answer, instead noting that ''directly regulating roaming prices may be the only way to guarantee that consumers are not unreasonably charged''.

Consumer groups have backed the proposal, saying that charges several times greater than what consumers expected have prompted them to advise people to not use their mobiles abroad.

''There's no question that there's a massive margin that is going in someone's pockets and it's not really for the cost of the calls,'' said Teresa Corbin, deputy chief executive of the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network.

She said that for many destinations and with many carriers, people were better off using their mobile phones only to receive calls and messages, and using a local phone card or buying a local SIM card to call back.

One of the problems the consumer network has identified is the confusing and conflicting pricing information provided by the telecom companies, meaning even savvy consumers are having difficulty keeping their bills down.

Rosemary Sinclair, managing director of the Australian Telecommunications Users Group, said the use of data services was driving bills up, noting a case where users were charged a massive $20 per megabyte downloaded overseas.

''It's a global problem, particularly with iPhones,'' she said.

The industry in Australia insists 75 per cent of the cost of roaming comes from the price charged by the overseas operator. It warns that cuts need to be part of a global move rather than the result of unilateral action in Australia to cut the price charged for calls from foreign visitors.

Chris Althaus, chief executive of the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association, said: ''Australian operators lack bargaining power because of our relatively small population and impact on closed intra-regional clubs such as the EU.''