Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Unlimited is unlimited is limited unlimited

Silly customers thinking they have unlimited internet access.


I picked this up from tmonews.com
Now, in the age of net neutrality and the ever going war of service providers wanting to charge for GBs of access on a monthly basis, this is an interesting read, albeit short.

Basically, what is going on here is that some dude is mad because he figured out that it is cheaper to use smartphone tethering for his sole means of internet access, and burned through a huge amount of data and then was put on a bandwidth limit, and is suing T-Mobile saying that their "unlimited" data plan is not really unlimited.

The funny thing though, is that it is.  He can still use as much data as he wants.  They didn't prevent him from using any more data services after he burned through 10 GBs worth, nor did they charge him any kind of overage fees for continuing to access it after he reached that point.  They just put a cap on the speed at which he could access it.

Is this wrong?  Eh, depends on who you talk to.  I don't use my phone as an internet access point, so its not a big issue to me.  The extent of web usage on my phone consists of googling something when i get into a discussion with my friends, or reading articles on engadget or sciencenews.org.  I know a dude who uses his to stream movies on netflix when he is at work.  Different people use it in different manners.

But, as I said, he is claiming the "unlimited plan" is not really unlimited.  I disagree.  He still maintains access, its just bandwidth capped.  Which I think is fine.  Especially considering how much data he burned through on a cell phone.  Would that irritate me?  Fuck yeah, it would.  But I mean, 30 bucks a month (android plan) and you get unlimited internet access?  That's a pretty good deal to me.  Especially considering that with Comcast and Charter, access plans start at 45 bucks a month and limit your speeds from the get go.

No comments:

Post a Comment