To Verizon, "Unlimited" Means 5 GB 743
Jason writes "For years there have been stories about people getting their unlimited Verizon EVDO Wireless accounts terminated because of excessive data usage, but Verizon never explicitly said that there is a limit. Now if you dive into the terms of the Unlimited Data Service plan they have put a section in that specifically states that anything over 5GB of data usage in a one month period is considered prima facie evidence that you must be downloading movies, and you will be cut off."
.ca (Score:2, Informative)
False Advertising (Score:5, Informative)
Purpose is plainly stated (Score:5, Informative)
Paragraph 1 of the Verizon terms state plainly that the Unlimited plain means unlimited bandwidth for a particular small set of uses:
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:False Advertising (Score:2, Informative)
Re:False Advertising (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Limited != Unlimited (Score:3, Informative)
Re:False Advertising (Score:5, Informative)
Civil remedies may apply as well, although an individual's damages are likely to be very minimal in this case, probably governed by state law. In Ohio, this would probably amount at most to the prorated monthly service fee, possibly a connection charge by an alternate supplier, and attorney's fees. If you're willing to file in non-small-claims court, you could also ask for an injunction against the offender.
(I ANAL, and all that jazz.)
Re:False Advertising (Score:2, Informative)
A very large number of companies already do.
"it would be, de facto, illegal,"
Whatever the legality of it, the Advertising Standards Authority turns a blind eye.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/27/fair_use_
Not bad for the mobile industry (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Linux (Score:1, Informative)
The simple answer is because the people in question are tethering their cellphones to their computers and using the cellphone as their computer's Internet connection. I believe all the major carriers forbid doing this UNLESS you sign up for their more expensive "computer" plan. I think it's pretty obvious that anyone downloading 5GB a month via their cellphone is tethering it to their computer and not actually viewing a bunch of webpages on their phone. So whine all you want about the misleading "unlimited" claims, but if you bothered to read the TOS you'd see that your phone's EVDO connection is NOT to be used as your computer's Internet connection UNLESS you sign up for their computer service. This is clearly spelled out, I guarantee it. As far as "unlimited" goes, for all intents and purposes, a few GB a month is pretty much "unlimited" if you're using your cellphone (and NOT your computer) to access said content in that it would realistically take longer than a month to use up that much bandwidth under normal circumstances.
Pizza, Internet, what's the difference (Score:4, Informative)
To quote Inigo Montoya, "You keep using that hword. I do not think it means what you think it means."
Nildram... (Score:3, Informative)
How about switching to a fairly decent (only fairly as they are part of Pipex, but seem fairly independent) ISP like Nildram then? They are totally up-front and honest about usage allowances...you get 50gig peak, unlimited off peak, and if you don't use the whole 50gigs peak one month it will roll over once to the next month.
Failing that, go with an Enta reseller like the UK Free Software Network who give a portion of their profits to open source projects.
Back on the subject though, I'm with T-Mobile on their "Web 'n' Walk" plus tarrif and they make it clear that it's a 3GB tarrif that disallows VOIP. For an extra £8 they up you to 10GB and allow VOIP.
That's called being totally transparent, and I'm very grateful they "get it" and show the actual usage terms in plain English for all to see.
Re:Whoa! (Score:1, Informative)
There are two different versions -- one that's on your cell phone and one that provides mobile internet access to your laptop.
In this particular case, it's for your laptop. So it can be very easy to use a lot of bandwidth for legit business purposes (especially in the IT realm). I was booted off Verizon Broadband due to excessive bandwidth usage -- ticked me off. I'm now a happy Sprint customer
It's interesting that streaming video isn't considered "internet browsing" by Verizon. Seems like "internet browsing" should be just about anything that I can find online...
Re:.ca (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What the hell? (Score:4, Informative)
That's what rocks about the cellular service industry. Everybody's mouth-breathing stupid so it's not a competitive disadvantage.
I read Verizon's TOS a couple of months ago when evaluating the service and said "no thanks". They say in no uncertain terms that the service is for web browsing and email only, and if you go over the 5G they'll assume you're using it for something else and cut you off with no recourse.
While web and email are probably what I spend the most time doing, I still download iso's with bt, use ichat with my mother, stuff that uses more bandwidth. I might also use a vpn or something like that.
I look at my mother as the quintessential "normal user", and even she is doing stuff that's outside the realm of email and web. Thankfully wifi hotspots are common enough that I'm not too worried about it.
Re:This is 2007. (Score:5, Informative)
I think you probably missed an important point. This is not a limit on Verizon's wired DSL or FIOS services, this is VerizonWireless' (a different company) 3G wireless data services.
With an average download speed of about 400kbs, 5GB represents about 40 hours of continuous download. EvDO is simply not practical for moving about large amounts of data.
I'm not a great fan of Verizon's business practices, but from a practical perspective the 5 GB limit is unlikely to affect 99.99% of their users. I'm traveling to client sites quite a bit for my job doing software implementations. I use the service extensively, mostly for web access, replicating email, and some Remote Desktop/VNC usage, and I rarely break 1GB in a month.
Re:This is 2007. (Score:3, Informative)
Depends on your jurisdiction. In some areas, there's a levy on blank dvds that covers this. Same as the levy on, for example, blank CDs in Canada, that is paid to the Canadian equivalent of the RIAA.
As for excessive bandwidth use being "prima facie evidence" of illegal movie downloading, they don't know the meaning of the term. Its nothing of the sort, and is easily disproven - I've downloaded 9 gigs of isos - OpenSuse 10 Alpha 3 - and uploaded 26 gigs of the same in the last couple of weeks.
There is a big difference between "prima facie" and "baseless assumption without any evidence so we can screw our customers over".
Re:Sign the petition (Score:5, Informative)
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Unlimited-ADSL/ [pm.gov.uk]
Re:Whoa! (Score:4, Informative)
The Verizon plan in question is marketed towards business professionals who are on the road a lot and need an internet connection for their laptop. Ture, the EVDO card you get with the plan uses the cell phone network to transfer your data. However it is meant to be your laptop's internet connection. Your cell phone does not use this plan at all.
I was on the road for a solid month last year and used their little EVDO card. My company is big enough that we have some exclusive deal where we really do get unlimited bandwidth. Just looking at the emails I downloaded in the first week I think I went over the 5GB. In the emails, there were 4 ppt files, 20 doc files, and 1 xls file. That xls file alone totaled just under 2GB (which is the max file size allowed by our server).
So at least in my case 5GB/month would really not work and I'm lucky to work for a big enough client that they can really get the unlimited bandwith.
The card was so good (speed was very close to my crapcast cable modem) and worked really everywhere (except in some very very very rual parts of Wyoming and Montana) that I was thinking about getting one for my personal use. Then I saw the that not only do you pay a fifty-some dollars a month but there is also a per kilobit charge on top of the monthly fee too. Now that I see there is a 5GB limit, I'm really glad I didn't get one.
Re:What the hell? (Score:4, Informative)
"Unlimited Data Plans and Features (such as NationalAccess, BroadbandAccess, Push to Talk, and certain VZEmail services) may ONLY be used with wireless devices for the following purposes: (i) Internet browsing; (ii) email; and (iii) intranet access (including access to corporate intranets, email, and individual productivity applications like customer relationship management, sales force, and field service automation). The Unlimited Data Plans and Features MAY NOT be used for any other purpose. Examples of prohibited uses include, without limitation, the following: (i) continuous uploading, downloading or streaming of audio or video programming or games; (ii) server devices or host computer applications, including, but not limited to, Web camera posts or broadcasts, automatic data feeds, automated machine-to-machine connections or peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing; or (iii) as a substitute or backup for private lines or dedicated data connections. This means, by way of example only, that checking email, surfing the Internet, downloading legally acquired songs, and/or visiting corporate intranets is permitted, but downloading movies using P2P file sharing services and/or redirecting television signals for viewing on laptops is prohibited. A person engaged in prohibited uses, continuously for one hour, could typically use 100 to 200 MBs, or, if engaged in prohibited uses for 10 hours a day, 7 days a week, could use more than 5 GBs in a month."
Re:This is 2007. (Score:3, Informative)
It worked by having you download a program that, when you put a CD in the drive, it read the serial number and then gave you access to mp3 versions of those songs (that you have that CD was information stored in your account). Then when you wanted to access those mp3s from... oh, let's say your computer at work, or a second computer at home, you'd log into your account and those songs for which you had demonstrated possession of the CD were unlocked. In other words, possessing the CD unlocked the songs, you didn't need the CD everywhere you went, that would defeat the purpose.
Ok, so the RIAA sued and won. Why? Because the lettering of the law says you can make a copy of YOUR media, but that possession of media doesn't give you the right to a copy of someone elses copy of the media (that they would be identical, assuming you used the same algorithms to create the mp3 didn't matter).
So I'd say, in this case, if you had the ability to copy your DVD for the purpose of a backup, you'd technically be safe, but owning a damaged media doesn't give you any rights to downloading even the identical content.
So, perhaps there's something really fuzzy going on here. I don't recall that slashdot article, and I'd like to see how the question and answer was phrased, but I think there is precedence in that ruling. I disagree with it, but I think the precedence is there.
Re:Linux (Score:2, Informative)
Verizon sells PC cards that go into a computer so you can use your computer over the Verizon EVDO network AKA BroadbandAccess. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EVDO [wikipedia.org]
In fact, I am replying to your statement on a laptop computer using a said PC Card on said Network. Either that, or I am paying for 2 cell phones like an idiot when this little slim PC card is also a cell phone. How do I dial?
Re:Where the hell do they say "UNLIMITED?" (Score:3, Informative)
All I had to do was navigate to 3rd level tech support (admittedly a real challenge) to achieve the following:
Unlimited bandwith flag on my account (normally you start to see rate throttling around 4 gigs into the month).
Port 25 open.
Return loss data uploaded to my modem, unlocking that feature set of my modem.
Really wasn't hard to get them to do either, just politely requested each feature with a nominal justification:
Port 25 (I want to use my mailserver, not yours. I understand that you are worried about spam from your network, that's why I'm happy to call and ask you rather than being pissed off you're blocking ports)
Bandwith: (I create and share custom distros over BT, also indy content over BT and HTTP downloads)
Return loss: (I understand what all these numbers mean as I've been in TC R&D for the last 10 years. I won't need to call you over piddly stuff if I have these numbers and the ability to tweak gain at my end)
All in all no problem with bandwith or speed.
-nB
Re:What the hell? (Score:3, Informative)
they're protecting their DSL business (Score:3, Informative)
verizon has a data business to protect (FIOS/DSL) and can't let you use the EVDO service the way that you would DSL service. if you paid to use EVDO the way that you use DSL, you might not buy DSL/FIOS, and that would be bad for profits. double digit growth doesn't happen on it's own you know.
they would love to block more, but all those commie net neutrality hippies would throw a fit. jeez, they act like abusing people's freedom to do what they want with services that they pay for is a crime or something.
the whole reason that there is one phone company and one cable company in 90% of the neighborhoods in america is to keep prices high and competition low. adding an unrestricted wireless data service of any kind would increase competition and lower prices, and that really isn't in verizon's best interest. the TOS for the EVDO service states that you can't use it as a substitute for DSL. just wait, soon they will call "misusing" EVDO a crime. you're stealing DSL service after all.
a lot of you people are already stealing residential phone service by using cell phones as substitutes for landline phone service. verizon is clearly not going to let you steal DSL as well.
at&t and verizon will do everything possible to guarantee that wireless data services are NOT in competition with residential and commercial DSL because those businesses are there to prop up the now useless telephone business. if you want DSL, in most markets, you need to buy a phone line as well. if you can use a mobile phone to make all of your calls AND get highspeed internet access... well you might as well call the telecommunications industry dead and burn the american flag too while you're at it.
someone else quoted this from the TOS:
if your friend lives in an RV, doesn't have DSL, and is using EVDO to get online then he broke the TOS and it sucks to be him. no one puts one over on the phone company. maybe he should drive to some hippy commune where there is muni-wifi.
Re:What the hell? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:This is 2007. (Score:3, Informative)
my.mp3.com [wikipedia.org] - the full text of the ruling is linked from wikipedia and is reasonably easy to read - either that or I've been reading so much copyright lawyerese lately that it has started to sound like normal English.
Re:What the hell? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What the hell? (Score:3, Informative)