To Verizon, "Unlimited" Means 5 GB

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?

[Vampyre_Dark]

And what if you paid for those movies?

Re:What the hell?

[z_gringo]

Somehow, I don't think they care.

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?

[Cragen]

At least they are consistent. Verizon gives you 2GB for your FIOS email account, but will not allow any emails older than 30 days to remain in one's email folders. They are simply deleted after 30.00001 days. Thank goodness for Gmail, and all the rest. Verizon email is simply a waste. Perhaps they really don't want anyone to use. it.

Re:

[jimstapleton]

It's a pretty standard business model, that Version is better at than most, usually it's self destructive though, as it hinders repeat business.

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?

[bberens]

A true geek would write a script to forward all of their e-mails to themselves after 29 days so that the e-mail all remains fresh.

Re:

[jimstapleton]

No, a true geek would set up something involving standard tag lines, so that people could have the email auto-shunted to certain folders.

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 /forced/ into providing their promised deal.

Re:What the hell?

[wperry1]

One word: Accessibility

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?"

[rah1420]

just simply get a nice mail system running on a home computer that gets email via POP from Verizon/whoever and has its own webmail interface (e.g. getting an MTA running on a home computer with Apache and PHP running Squirrelmail or the like and having a dynamic DNS service)

How is this simpler than "www.gmail.com?"

Dynamic DNS, fer Pete's sake. The average /.er maybe, the average Joe Six-gig computer user, no way.

Re:

[ncc74656]

No no, a true geek would just get an email account from another provider.

The true geek runs his own mail server.

Re:What the hell?

[kalirion]

All ISP email accounts are a waste. Why would you want something as important as email tied to a service you may quit?

Re:What the hell?

[aplusjimages]

Totally agree. I have friends constantly sending me their new email address because they switched from Bellsouth to Comcast. Then a year later they switch to another ISP and I have to change it again.

Re:What the hell?

[ByteofK]

Whereas if you are AT&T they expect you to use their email service. While I have about 6 or 7 domains and an account at each of GMail, Yahoo and Hotmail, I thought I would not need to use the free email account they provided me. During a dispute over billing, they implemented a "soft shutoff" which involved nothing more than blocking the email account. As I was oblivious to this move I had no idea they had given us the soft shutoff so when they pulled the plug, it came as a surprise. Idiots. Even more idiotic, after crediting me the $99 breach of contract charge (even though I didn't sign a contract) and the remainder of my bill for the aggro, they realised they had over-credited me and sent me a check for $0.09. The whole billing argument was about the so-called $11 per month landline service which cost me $25. As a foreign national, US resident, they couldn't say I knew or expected the bill to be that much higher including all the taxes. Or it might have been my first phone bill after leaving home. It's crap like this that needs to be clamped down on in this country, not the illegal (or legal!) downloading of movies, music and software.

Re:

[Splab]

One thing that keeps baffling me is what the US citizens will take from companies. Here in Denmark, if you sell something as unlimited you damned well better be prepared to offer it else you will get your ass wouped for false advertisement.

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:

[ByteofK]

Sometimes you haven't got much option but to "take it". I only got the refund from AT&T after mentioning "bait and switch" and a possible FCC report. Until that point they were quite happy to "do me the favour" of "waiving" the $99 breach of contract fee and insisted on the rest of the payment. Have you ever heard a radio commercial from the US? There's about 10 lines of big claims spoken in the normal voice, then at the end 5 seconds of "audio fine print" that would normally take 30-60 seconds to read

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[account_deleted]

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Re:What the hell?

[Trailer Trash]

Verizon isn't merely being dishonest in calling it "Unlimited", they're also being very, very, stupid.

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?

[PopeRatzo]

Now think about how a company like Verizon is going to act when there's no Net Neutrality. How long you think it's going to take before you are so limited by their TOS that you can ONLY do email and web browsing, and only using their email and approved web sites?

Re:

[rainman_bc]

and only using their email and approved web sites?

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?

[Intron]

5GB is the upper limit. Here's the TOS:

"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?

[advocate_one]

that's me stuffed then... I took a peek at my Azureus stats... and over the last 250 or so days, I've downloaded 325 GB and uploaded 340 GB... and thats with a paltry 50KB/s upstream... That's a lot of Linux distros... mind you, there's an awful lot of public domain films and music that I download and seed as well.

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:

[arodland]

Well we're talking about EVDO here, not wired broadband. It's expensive to set that stuff up, and they're selling a lot more bandwidth than they have, in hopes that most people will never use more than half a percent of what's available. I don't expect them to allow anyone to run at peak rates constantly, because it would flood out the network. But they shouldn't be allowed to get away with selling a quite limited plan as "unlimited". Hopefully there's a way to nail them for misleading advertising, but I ha

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[account_deleted]

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New! The "Infinity Plus One" plan from Verizon!

[jpellino]

Even better than unlimited - this one goes to 11 !

You get the idea.

"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the America public." - H. L. Mencken

Re:

[UnxMully]

It's not "marketing friendly" to anyone with half a brain, which I hope covers most people who sign up for mobile data to that kind of level. My supplier in the UK, Orange, has an unlimited data plan which has a 1GB per month cap and I can blow that in far less than a month and know that all to well which is why I'd never sign up to a plan like that.

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?

[mgiuca]

Yeah, I totally agree.

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 ... surprise, "Unlimited". It's actually 10GB broadband, and after that, capped at about 14kbps or some ridiculous sub-modem speed, and that is truly unlimited.

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:

[mgiuca]

Heh, a friend of mine was using the term "shaped". I assumed it was some very regal pronunciation of the word "capped".

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 ...

[CustomDesigned]

PROVIDED there is a meter to tell you how much you've used. My Dad's sattelite service does it right. The limit is spelled out, there is a meter to tell you how much you've used this month, and when you get close to the limit, it suggests increasing your limit by upgrading to the next plan level. Now THAT is smart business.

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:

[networkBoy]

I have one of the biggest ISPs for DSL.
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...

[xtracto]

Here in the UK the same thing happens. I am always wary of those services providing unlimited *anything*. That is why I am more comfortable with Google's 3GB or 4GB or whatever space they give against say, yahoo's unlimited, because ALWAYS (show me an advertisement that does not have it) the word UNLIMITED comes with the corresponding '*' attached to it, and in the case of the broadband services they use the "Fair use" policy to trivially limit the bandwidth.

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...

[Phil John]

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:

[Ced_Ex]

I believe it's called a class-action lawsuit where affected people all gather together to get their voices heard. Perhaps when people learn about these "restrictions" on "unlimited", they will go ahead and launch this suit.

This is 2007.

[MarkByers]

Paying for movies is so old-fashioned. I don't think people do it any more. If you are downloading more the 5GB then you are definitely a pirate.

But take comfort in the fact that you are helping stop global warming.

Re:

[Gr8Apes]

First: (obligatory IANAL) downloading movies is perfectly legal - uploading them is illegal.

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.

[Rogerborg]

First: (obligatory IANAL) downloading movies is perfectly legal - uploading them is illegal.

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:

[tomhudson]

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.

Evidence th

Re:

[gfxguy]

But there was the case of... was "mymp3.com?"

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:

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

But there was the case of... was "mymp3.com?"

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:

[rucs_hack]

YANALAY - You are not a lawyer, are you?

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.

[RevMike]

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.

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.

[aclarke]

It doesn't matter if it doesn't affect 99.99% of their customers. It's still not unlimited, which is what they're advertising. It is a Big Deal for that 0.001% (higher really) of people who DO go over the value. One of my friends just got kicked off Verizon's service a couple weeks ago. He's a software developer, works at home a lot, and livs in an RV. This service SHOULD have been good for him, but after downloading a few TV shows from iTunes (NOT P2P, notice) and a couple Linux ISOs or whatever, he suddenly got booted. They didn't even give him an option to pay more and stay on the service.

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

[teh_chrizzle]

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:

[MoHaG]

If you are downloading more the 5GB then you are definitely a pirate.

Or you download and test Solaris and Solaris Express, or you download a DVD based linux distro over bittorrent.....

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:

[afidel]

This brings up a good point, when I installed Burning Crusades I did it as a download install. That was 2.2GB and the patch to get me up to where it would install on WoW was several hundred megs, and so were the post Burning Crusades patches. So in total I would have used half of my monthly data usage just installing a WoW update. This is why I like Wide Open West, I get 3 IP's and as far as I can tell there are no data caps and they don't do stupid things like throttle Bittorrent (Bittorrent is an ISP's fr

Re:

[toleraen]

Don't forget Blizzard does you the favor of using your upload for patches! Not sure if uploading counts toward the 5GB limit for VZW.

Re:

[Andy Dodd]

It can, but (usually) does not. :( As a result, it usually becomes an ISP's worst enemy.

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:

[afidel]

Yep, when talking to large college and ISP network admins they have seen that Bittorrent uses a large amount of internode bandwidth but it reduces the amount of traffic that needs to pass peering boundaries or that would require a trip out the internet pipe. A good example would be patch day for WoW, if everyone in the dorm needs to pull down a large patch it would eat a huge amount of bandwidth but if the majority of each patch download can be satisfied by peers in the dorm then the total amount that goes

Ah memories...

[PC-PHIX]

Reminds me of some time ago when I got my first hard drive with "unlimited" capacity... and then accidentally filled it up with 5GB of movies in the first few days of using it.

I vowed next time to get a hard drive with at least twice unlimited capacity.

Re:Ah memories...

[aadvancedGIR]

No matter its size, when correctly used, a HD can have only 3 states: still in the box, almost full and dead.

Re:

[clambake]

No matter its size, when correctly used, a HD can have only 3 states: still in the box, almost full and dead.

Hey, "almost full" and "dead" are NOT mutually exclusive!

Limited != Unlimited

[Lezarwerks]

Companies are slowing evolving into lawyer-based companies, where they will soon have a whole codebook to define what each word in the dictionary really means. This is all for the money, no doubt.

Re:

[nwbvt]

Remember, this is the same company that last year had trouble telling the difference between dollars and cents [youtube.com]. It may well be that they were simply confused.

Re:Limited != Unlimited

[Don_dumb]

Welcome to the internet in the UK, loads of ISPs advertise 'Unlimited' adsl only to actually have limits. One has been found guilty of false advertising.
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

[SnowWolf2003]

Sign the petition to stop UK ISPs from advertising unlimited packages when there are in fact hidden caps in their un-Fair Usage Policies
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Unlimited-ADSL/ [pm.gov.uk]

.ca

[Anonymous Coward]

My .ca ISP never said "unlimited" but 90 GB/month. They never write unless I hit at least 120 GB. And they don't send forward letters from the RIAA/MPAA

Re:.ca

[aicrules]

You hit 120GB a month? Do you remember what the outside looks like?

Re:.ca

[Gordonjcp]

Do you remember what the outside looks like?

Of course he does, he's got all these movies of it...

Re:.ca

[EvilGrin666]

Sure, right now it's only 'Pirates' hitting these limitations. However next week/month/year it'll be 'Average Joe User' with his . For example, how much bandwidth does the average Vonage user munch? What happens when IPTV starts to hit mainstream?

Re:.ca

[Cereal Box]

First of all, Vonage hardly uses any bandwidth. It's something like 128kbps, so roughly 16KBps. NO ONE is going to talk 24/7, and even if they did, it's not going to rack up as much bandwidth as say, having several Bittorrents going at once.

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:

[djrok212]

Read the original article again. This isn't people using their cellphones for Internet access, but Verizon's EVDO service which is designed to be a primary Internet access method for people on the road.

Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

and what if you're downloading linux distributions or other operating systems? ISO's for DVD's are consistently around 4gb. IF you download one dvd iso and one cd iso theres a good chance you will already be over the limit.

Well, in Canada...

[lavid]

In Canada just pay .02 cents per kB. What a great deal!

Re:Well, in Canada...

[trenien]

Well here in Japan I pay around $45 a month (modem rental included) for a 50M/s connection - mind you, if it was available where I live I'd get fiber at 100M/s.

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:

[Txiasaeia]

If I decide to buy several dozen full-quality albums (.wavs) from Magnatune, and go over the 5GB limit, I'll be cut off because they assume that I'm pirating movies?

Re:Let me get this straight:

[CliffSpradlin]

Yes, they will cut you off, but not because they assume you're pirating movies.

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...

[BinarySkies]

In a brief overview of the logs that are kept by a gateway at the local university, it shows that, on a daily basis, 32 members of my dormitory floor download at roughly 700KBps average during the day (that's total for all users). That's about 60,480,000 KB per day. Fifty NINE gigabytes per day. Divide that by 32. 1,845MB per person, per day. This is a reasonable number for college students. Let's assume that up to 75% of that is bittorrent, other peer to peer traffic, or what have you. That's STILL 461MB per person, per day, of assumed legitimate traffic. This is AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Web browsing, and other legal Internet services. 461MB * 30 days = 13,837MB or 13.5GB. I rest my case.

Re:Forgive my statistics, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your assumption is where you made your mistake. You pulled 75% out of the air with no basis for doing so. What if bittorrent was 99.9% of the bandwidth used? Your case resting would be completely incorrect.

assumed legitimate traffic.

[wiredog]

The operative word here being assumed.

Someone who's IM'ing 13.5 GB/Month won't be in college long...

Re:

[8472]

I think it's a pretty bold assumption to suggest that only 75% of that traffic is illegal P2P traffic. Speaking from my own experiences at university i'm sure that figure is more like 90% giving 1,845 x 0.1 x 30 = 5535MB... oh wait... yeah Verizon are crooks.

False Advertising

[Silver Sloth]

Doesn't the US have somethign equivalent to the British Trades Description Act [wikipedia.org]. If they tried selling 'unlimited' internet access with a limit in the UK it would be, de facto, illegal, whatever the small print.

Truth-in-advertising

[ZirbMonkey]

Doesn't the US have something equivalent to the British Trades Description Act. If they tried selling 'unlimited' internet access with a limit in the UK it would be, de facto, illegal, whatever the small print.

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:

[VirusEqualsVeryYes]

it wouldn't be illegal - no law would be broken.

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.

Secondly, most ISPs sell `unlimit

Re:False Advertising

[Dachannien]

Actually, there are situations in the US in which false advertising is a criminal act. In particular, see 18 USC 52-55. [cornell.edu] The same applies, perhaps even in a broader sense, in some states. In Ohio, for example, it may be a third- or second-degree misdemeanor.

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

[wombatmobile]

Paragraph 1 of the Verizon terms state plainly that the Unlimited plain means unlimited bandwidth for a particular small set of uses:

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.

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[account_deleted]

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I once got paid to quit

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of an ISP in Germany that offered unlimited broadband for cheap 7 bucks a month.

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:

[crabpeople]

Yeah we all saw that episode. Was your friends name homer simpson?

new idea for advertising

[bazorg]

Unlimited* Internet Access for only US$29.999

* - Bullshit!

Not everyone has unlimited access.

[jovetoo]

Well, you might find that extremely limited (and it is) but it isn't so strange for me. In Belgium the major ISPs (Belgacom [belgacom.be], Telenet [telenet.be]) allow about 10Gb quota per month, with 5 euro per 5Gb for extra quota. This is expensive! Downloading a movie or even a linux distribution DVD costs you several euros on bandwidth alone.
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

[vivaoporto]

5 (gigabytes / month) = 15.9494775 kbps [google.pt]. That's a quarter of the dialup speed. You can reach 5 GB/month using your good old 56 kbps dialip connection 6 hours a day on its max capacity. Enough said.

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

[underwhelm]

Unlimited data and unlimited bandwidth aren't the same. Why doesn't Verizon just throttle abusers? They can still have their unlimited data as advertised, just at a rate of 2400bps.

Not bad for the mobile industry

[jrumney]

If you think that's bad, to Vodafone UK, "unlimited" means 15Mb. Yes mega, though that's per day, not per month. It also doesn't include IM, VOIP or P2P. This is according to their new price plans that start in June, with a "£1 per day flat rate for internet usage".

Pizza, Internet, what's the difference

[Dachannien]

Compare this to Papa John's, which is running a special on their website which says: Three Medium, Unlimited Toppings (Maximum Five Toppings per pizza)

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.

[Dr_Barnowl]

So many people on this thread are talking about downloading movies, calculating what the average bandwidth of college students is, etc....

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.

[israfil_kamana]

I got this for a contract I was working on, and we regularly got dumps of "representative test data" against which we wrote our software integration tests. At least every couple of days, they would push out a 300MB file. Add to that the fact that I was building our automated software build infrastructure using a tool (maven) that downloads dependencies from central repositories (about 80MB for a full pull of all dependencies), and because I was creating the infrastructure I had to blow my system away to test cleanly several times a day.

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

[Enfors]

That's totally besides the point. If they say it's unlimited, then it should be unlimited. It may be a bad idea business wise for them to provide ulimited bandwidth for a fixed price, as you correctly point out, but that's their problem.

Re:If it has a fixed cost, it has a fixed limit

[rucs_hack]

its all down to the definition. A 'normal' user, reading pages, and sending/receiving email, would see 5gb as more then they would use. Someone with greater needs, such as to download large files, would see 5gb as barely adequate. Hell, even re installing a Steam account on your computer could fill that in a day.

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:

[rucs_hack]

I think you are sort of right. However, lets look at a theoretical example:

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:

[gnasher719]

'' Could you really expect to stream down the maximum amount of traffic possible 24/7 and pay the same as checking email once per day? ''

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

[MightyYar]

The contract is fair and reasonable, but conflicts with their advertising. You can't advertise the Brooklyn Bridge for sale and then present someone with a contract for a tenement in The Bronx. People just want truthful advertising.

Re:If it has a fixed cost, it has a fixed limit

[teh_chrizzle]

People just want truthful advertising.

truthful advertising... that's a good one. it's also an oxymoron, like "political integrity" or "reality television".

Re:

[theckhd]

This isn't limited to mobile phone access. They actually market this as a feasible alternative to DSL and cable. If you go to their product site [vzw.com], you'll find that they advertise that the speeds are comparable to DSL, and they offer a PC card so that you can connect without using your phone. And while they offer the plan cheaper with a 2-year phone contract ($59.99), you'll notice that you can purchase this service for a little more without any voice plan at all ($79.99).

So on the one hand, they're advert

Re:

[walt-sjc]

Except that they have corporate lawyers on staff that deal with "annoying" lawsuits like this without really costing them anything. It will cost you 50K - 100K to start unless you are lucky enough to find a very good lawyer (and they will need to be good to go up against Verizon) that is willing to do it on spec. You KNOW the FTC and other government agencies are not going to come to your aid, right???

Re:Whoa!

[gnasher719]

'' I agree that they should not be allowed to market it as 'unlimited' if it's not, but saying that 5GB is too little is just insane. ''

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!

[moxley]

Whether or not it's "too little" really isn't the issue as far as I'm concerned...

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:

[_Sprocket_]

'unlimited' is used in marketing just like 'free' is. Of course free things aren't free, and unlimited things aren't unlimited.

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!

[stry_cat]

This is NOT for home internet.

Not exactly.

This is for a cellphone.

Again not exactly.

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:

[miyako]

The problem is that they aren't exactly cutting off the customers. They are cutting off their service, certainly, but they are still collecting their money. It would be different if they were to say, actually offer unlimited service, but if someone is using more than 5GB a month, then they use a clause in the contract to drop them as a customer. Instead they cutting off access at 5GB a month, but forcing the customers to keep paying during the 2 year contract period.

Re:

[hotdiggitydawg]

Unlimited [reference.com] is not a term that is ambiguous in any sense. If you can take it to mean anything other tha "without limit" then you aren't speaking English.

A point that is irrelevant

[Combatjuan]

If his phone service works anything like my phone, he is probably not downloading /to/ his phone, he's probably downloading /through/ his phone. Windows (and presumably other OSes) sees a phone as an internet connection. My phone can act as a 802.11b access point, or do the same through phone based internet service. I haven't read the license agreement for this fellow's service, but I would assume that to be fair access. Nevertheless, this isn't even the point.

The point is that they advertise the servic

Re:

[Jumperalex]

That is a great thought. Too bad it IS my home internet since I can't get cable or dsl at my house (despite a cable line that was run down my street 6 months ago) and dial-up never got me more than 18kbs. Even EVDO was a stretch and I had to get an external antenna to make it work.