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Telus cancels 'unlimited' data plan
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by Jason Sanders | August 29, 2008 at 09:30 am
938 views | 2 Recommendations | 4 comments
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A small number of customers — or "0.1 per cent" — were being cancelled… because their heavy usage was slowing the company's wireless network and affecting speeds for the vast majority of users.
This brings up an old debate about what constitutes a 'reasonable amount' and what 'unlimited' really means; one that cost U.S. ISP, Verizon, $1 million.
Verizon agreed to repay $1 million US to customers who had been wrongly terminated for downloading too much under a plan the company marketed as "unlimited."
Funny how as technology improves and gets cheaper, the Internet is becoming more expensive and regulated. Even regular broadband is getting bandwidth caps. I have to wonder what the Internet's future will look like if we continue to constrain the platform.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (4)
at 09:41 on August 29th, 2008
Remember almost 10 years ago when (before broadband was affordable) that we bought tiered packages for dialup based on internet usage?
That's where we are now for cellphones.
at 09:45 on August 29th, 2008
Half my comment did not post for some reason.
I also said...
As monopolies dwindle away with increasing competition for customers, we can look forward to one price unlimited use in the future, just like internet usage.
Now if only we could get the same deal with gas.
at 12:33 on August 29th, 2008
Sounds like an infrastructure problem, and not a user problem, especially if the percentage of "offending" users is as small as they say. After all, how long can a web-enabled phone stay online without the battery going flat? How much data can it really manage realistically? Unless users were tethering their phones to their laptop for a bit of file-sharing, I dunno.
at 12:53 on August 29th, 2008
Jason Sanders, I like this story. It's good stuff.
Capping "unlimited" is ridiculous. They need to be very clear up-front that "unlimited" ISN'T. They can't just go around terminating people without making it overtly obvious when signing up: here's your download speed (it may fluctuate a bit), here's your average monthly cap, if you go over the cap in X consecutive months we give you a warning. Do it again and we terminate you for abuse.
I still think that unlimited should actually be unlimited. Heck, I think that "long distance" should be rolled in to regular landline phone plans. I don't get why we have to pay by the minute for LD. Especially when many cell phone plans throw it in as part of the service now. It seems hokey to me. They should figure out people's "average usage" and just charge a flat rate based on that. Non of this bajillion dollar LD bills.
Same with internet services. Dial-up used to be hella expensive. Then came flat rates / unlimited plans. Everything eventually trends toward flat rates. All we need is one carrier to go that route and the others almost instantly fall in line. Get one to undercut the others, and prices fall across the boards.
Just my opinion, of course...