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."
What the hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is just easier for them to sell something called "unlimited" than it is to sell something called "limited to 5GB".
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Basically, get as much money from the customer while providing the minimum possible, often less than you lead the customer to expect. As long as you can hold it up in the court of law.
The email trick will hold up because it's being deleted by date, not size. The "unlimited bandwidth"... I don't think that could hold up.
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It would then allow sign up, and send 1.8GB-1.9GB of email per month distributed evenly over each day.
Make sure verizon is
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have 2 computers at work, a laptop and a desktop at home, Blackberry, and I occasionally find the need to check my e-mail on a friend's computer. With my e-mail stored on a remote (GMail) server I can get to my current mail from anywhere.
-----
WP
http://www.wperry.net/ [wperry.net]
"just simply?" (Score:4, Insightful)
How is this simpler than "www.gmail.com?"
Dynamic DNS, fer Pete's sake. The average
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The true geek runs his own mail server.
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What the hell? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We even have requirements for companies to explicitly tell how much you have to pay in total if the service is with a minimum sign up period.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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:What the hell? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I recall back in the days of Aol,Prodigy and Compuserve where they had internal only sites. The internet wrecked that business model really fast.
And once you filter the web you lose your common carrier status. Something that would legally sting ISP's when all of a sudden there's kiddie porn lawsuits popping up all over the place.
I don't see that coming any time soon as long as there's competition in the ISP space.
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:What the hell? (Score:4, Interesting)
Mind you, I'm with an ISP that does not have one of these stupid "fair use" policies tied to their "unlimited" accounts... I have broadband via my cable account... and there's a fibre optic feed to a splitter thingy in the basement and I get a short coax run to my flat from that. That coax also carries my phone and TV signals.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
New! The "Infinity Plus One" plan from Verizon! (Score:5, Funny)
You get the idea.
"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the America public." - H. L. Mencken
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If a service is unlimited then there should be no limits to it other than the laws of physics, and you all know we canna defy the laws of physics. If you hav
Re:What the hell? (Score:4, Interesting)
In Australia, no plans are truly unlimited (I think it's because of the high cost to connect us to the rest of the world). For example, I'm with Bigpond. We have the plan called
It isn't as draconian as Verizon (you don't get "terminated" or charged extra). It just isn't *really* unlimited because the Internet these days is pretty much unusable at 14kbps.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah... it sucks. When I said 14kbps, I didn't actually look it up (sorry if I sounded more authorative than I am... someone above said it's actually 64kbps). All I know is that it really isn't usable. Just doing basic web browsing is a major pain. I have to wait for text to gradually appear on the screen.
I can't remember if this is better or worse than what dialup used to be. But I certain
LIMITED bandwidth is no problem ... (Score:3, Interesting)
I have Cox cable, and although they do a lot of other things right, this isn't one of them. The AUP (Acceptable Use Policy) states monthly upload and download bandwidth limits, but
Re: (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.
Just marketing... (Score:4, Interesting)
I have also read a lot of times people assuming that the people that download a lot is *pirating* stuff. But with the current rise of multimedia content (VoIP, VoD, online gaming, and the massive amount of flash crap in the web) it is very easy to go over 2GB a month...
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
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
This is 2007. (Score:4, Funny)
But take comfort in the fact that you are helping stop global warming.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Now for the 5GB limit. Get real. 1 DVD ISO for a linux distro is 4GB alone. I could easily reach this limit in about 20 minutes without even trying, just setting up a new machine. Heck, I'd be willing to bet that just 2 weeks ago, I probably downloaded over 15GB of data in about a 3 hour time frame, and there wasn't a single song, movie, or illegal download involved. And that was only part of 1 day. I'd hate to see w
Re:This is 2007. (Score:4, Insightful)
You are dumber than toast. Downloading a movie makes a copy of it. If you're not authorised to make that copy, you're infringing the owner's rights. Just because the MPAA are only choosing to sue uploaders doesn't make downloading legal.
Re: (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.
Re: (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 w
Re: (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: (Score:3, Interesting)
Nope, but like many computer scientists, law was a required portion of my course.
As far as I know, this question has not been definitively settled by any court rulings and there are no specific laws that say "thou shalt not copy a DVD to replace a damaged DVD." So it might be okay and it might not be okay. The MPAA and movie studios seem to think it is not okay. Expect a long, expensive fight that you *might* win if you'd like to assert the right to download DVDs as
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:5, Insightful)
That's no "unlimited" in any real sense of the word. I don't think anyone would reasonably fault Verizon for putting a 5GB limit on their plan. To call it unlimited though is disingenuous, no matter what the fine print says, and to not offer any other more expensive options for those who do go over the limit is just stupid.
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 somethi
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There are many ways to use more that 5GB a month....
Well this makes the typical South African's complaints about a very low 3GB cap seem invalid... (I know users thats able to use more that 50GB / month on local only accounts....)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, throttling it to a fixed cap is bad, but I would not care if an ISP made BT traffic low-priority, as long as they were clear that they did so.
I hate hidden caps (such Cablevision OptimumOffline's "we'll permanently drop your cap down to 150 KB/sec without warning or notification if you use too much upstream" policy.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Ah memories... (Score:5, Funny)
I vowed next time to get a hard drive with at least twice unlimited capacity.
Re:Ah memories... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Hey, "almost full" and "dead" are NOT mutually exclusive!
Limited != Unlimited (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Limited != Unlimited (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact many ISPs claim to have unlimited use (despite all ADSL in the UK being limited) most only state in the small print that they have 'Fair Usage Policies' (FUP) which will come in when they decide you have used too much, they always imply that there are no limits (one even states "that you dont have to monitor your usage!").
This is simply illegal IMHO, you cannot state that something is unlimited when it is limited. Even if this contradiction comes in the small print, especially when you do not state how limited it is. A c
This page http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/caps.htm [kitz.co.uk] outlines it perfectly.
Re:Sign the petition (Score:5, Informative)
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Unlimited-ADSL/ [pm.gov.uk]
.ca (Score:2, Informative)
Re:.ca (Score:5, Funny)
Re:.ca (Score:5, Funny)
Of course he does, he's got all these movies of it...
Re:.ca (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:.ca (Score:4, Insightful)
Again, with IPTV, there's a realistic limit on how much you're going to watch in a given month. In other words, there is a clear definition of what "unlimited" means in that context. And there's also no way in hell that someone can possibly watch TV 24/7 for an entire month, so that alone is evidence enough to justify that someone is abusing their connection. And let's not forget that the cable company can easily throttle back your general Internet bandwidth in the case that you're using excessive IPTV bandwidth.
Now as far as the people in the article, they are CLEARLY using their cellphones as a general Internet connection for their computers. This is FORBIDDEN by the cellphone TOS unless you sign up for a different plan. I just flat out don't believe that someone used 5GB of bandwidth in a month by checking email and surfing web pages using ONLY their cellphone.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Linux (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, in Canada... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Well, in Canada... (Score:4, Interesting)
Limits? What limits? I remember last year when a friend came over for a while. With both our computers on the same connection, we often downloaded around 6Go a day...
Let me get this straight: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Let me get this straight: (Score:5, Insightful)
If you read the actual terms you'll see this:
Examples of prohibited uses include, without limitation, the following: (i) continuous uploading, downloading or streaming of audio or video programming or games;
Basically, they don't want you using the internet to purchase movies or music from anyone other than Verizon. It's an incredibly anti-competitive action.
Forgive my statistics, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Forgive my statistics, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
assumed legitimate traffic. (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone who's IM'ing 13.5 GB/Month won't be in college long...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
False Advertising (Score:5, Informative)
Truth-in-advertising (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, we do. It's called "Truth in Advertising," and it's part of the Federal Trade Commission's job to enforce that business don't lie about their services. We also have the Better Business Buerue as a watch group to identify unfair and unethical business practices.
Anyone who's had their service dropped by verizon for the 5GB limit, and isn't hosting a pirating service, should be suing verizon under truth in advertising. When you use the word "Unlimited" in big bold letters on the cover of the plan, you can't lie about it in the fine print.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There may or may not be laws specifically regarding false advertising [wikipedia.org], but there sure as hell exists the FTC (in the US) which regulates such things. Don't confuse "civil law" with "suggestive in nature". If the FTC deems this intentionally misleading and unfair (and I think they would), then yes, Verizon's practices are, in fact, illegal. Fine print can clarify, but it can't directly and obviously clash with other information.
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.)
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:
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
I once got paid to quit (Score:5, Interesting)
They also gave me a brand new VoIP-enabled wireless router as a welcome present and didn't even charge for the first 3 months.
After 5 months that guy calls: "I want to talk to you about your DSL plan [...] over the past months you've been downloading an average 181 GB a month [...] up to 243 GB [...] bla bla bla"
He then offered me 100 bucks if I agree to quit the plan immediately and never come back.
So:
State-of-the-art VoIP-router: 0,00$
5 months of downloading TV series: -14,00$
Getting paid to leave: : +100,00$ (priceless)
---------------
all of the above: +86,00$
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
new idea for advertising (Score:5, Funny)
* - Bullshit!
Not everyone has unlimited access. (Score:4, Interesting)
Minor ISPs use this a nice way into the market. (For example, mine [edpnet.be] allows me 20Gb default with a 0.25 euro cents per Gb over that upto 60Gb per month).
Offcourse, all limits are openly advertised...
Google calculator has something to say (Score:5, Insightful)
In other news, I pay 25 euros/month for a 8 Mbps down/512 Kbps up unlimited cable line, and I consider it expensive, and plan to change to the competitor that offers a 4M/512K by under 20 euros. God bless Europe.
unlimited data vs unlimited bandwidth (Score:3, Interesting)
Not bad for the mobile industry (Score:4, Informative)
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."
Wired usage habits on wireless are antisocial. (Score:4, Insightful)
What they are not addressing is that most people would be using wired bandwidth for these tasks. Wired bandwidth is relatively plentiful, even with the bottlenecks in the local loop. The capacity in the backbones is mostly restricted by the amount of routing, not the capacity of the fibers, which isn't anywhere near full (hear about all that "dark fiber"? New multiplexers? Hmm?)
On the other hand, if you use wireless bandwidth, you're consuming it from a relatively small pool allocated to a cell. There's only so much you can squeeze out of radio bandwidth, which is why it's such a big deal to the cellular networks when the government auction off another slice of spectrum.
Yes, this is false advertising by Verizon. But the real issue is a minority of idiots spoiling the party for everyone else ; you just can't support those usage patterns over current wireless technologies, not for everyone in the cell. They are quite reasonably ticked off with a minority of the customers degrading their service and making them look bad to the rest.
If you want industrial quantities of bandwidth, you should be using a landline, and paying for it.
In an ideal world, marketing would make it very clear what service you were getting, and people would be more respectful of limited common resources, like radio spectrum.
I blew my 5GB cap entirely with work-related data. (Score:4, Interesting)
I bought it for work, and was presumed to have just been file sharing. I had unpleasant conversations with Verizon. Didn't even have an appeal process, nor an opportunity to demonstrate my situation, nor even the right to ask for a manager. I seriously thought about lodging a small claims court claim for damages, as their cutting me off cost me $1500 in demonstrable lost receipts (i'm paid by the hour) in that week while I tried to research an alternative.
I finally went with Cingular on their unlimited data plan and they never had a problem with any limits. I also made sure we researched the policies and they said they didn't give even the slightest care how much I downloaded, or if I used it for "broadband services" like music/movie downloads, 'cause that's what Broadband usually means. Other than switching to a Mac and having a bit of irritation geting an ExpressCard device to support the service initially, I've had no problems with it.
i.
Re:If it has a fixed cost, it has a fixed limit (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If it has a fixed cost, it has a fixed limit (Score:4, Insightful)
That aside, the thing is that companies like Verizon have seen their old pricing model prove inadequate over time, and they want to distance themselves from the previous model. The interweb was such that only people downloading illegally were exceeding their previously undefined upper limit. I would imagine they got the 5gb value by doing some data mining on their customers. I'd bet that most never go near 5gb.
I imagine they know people will soon start buying movies and other large media online as a matter of course, and they want to be able to charge for 'premium' access. The best way to achieve that is show that they are taking action now against heavy downloaders, demonstrating the need for different levels of access, so they cannot be accused of suddenly instituting a new system for the sake of profit only.
I would cope with metered access, if it meant no hassle when I did transfer a lot. I do often have to transfer large amounts of data between home and my lab overnight.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You have two customers, one is a light net user. They like to send photo's of their kids around on email to the rest of their family, spread all over the world, and use email as the main means of communicating between their extended family. They shop online, and like to hunt around for cheap flights/holidays. Perhaps they buy the odd small game on-line for the kids.
The other customer is a gamer. They like to play on-line for many hou
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If it says unlimited, then yes. My ISP offers contracts with a limit of 2 GB, 6 GB, and 30 GB per month, at different cost. I have a 6 GB contract. If I went with a competitor who offers "unlimited", then I would expect more than the 30 GB limit that my current ISP offers, and definitely not less than my current 6 GB contract.
Re:If it has a fixed cost, it has a fixed limit (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If it has a fixed cost, it has a fixed limit (Score:4, Funny)
truthful advertising... that's a good one. it's also an oxymoron, like "political integrity" or "reality television".
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So on the one hand, they're advert
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Whoa! (Score:4, Insightful)
5 GB is too little when you sell it as "unlimited".
Nobody would complain if they advertised and sold it as "limited to 5 GB per month".
Re:Whoa! (Score:4, Insightful)
What's too little for one person would be more than enough for another.
The real issue is how they're marketing it; If there is a 5GB limit, then that is a limit... period - hence it is not "unlimited."
I'm sure that it is easier for them to sell it as "unlimited," just like it would make my life a hell of a lot easier if I tell the IRS that I didn't make any money last year and refuse to let them commence their annual financial colonoscopy.
They need to find another name - calling it unlimited is, basically a straight up lie.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
However, if someone's advertising campaign gives me a free widget and then later tries to bill me for said widget, we're suddenly in very different legal waters than if my "free" widget came with an expensive service plan that I agreed to (or whatever the hook is). I don't care how jaded you are - there are limits to what companies and their advertisers can do or claim. Its not
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: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
A point that is irrelevant (Score:3, Insightful)
The point is that they advertise the servic
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)