Cable ISPs and Wireless Providers Define Unlimited Service Differently
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Almost all the Broadband providers advertise and scream about their super fast, unlimited service but they keep cutting off users that they claim download too much. In some cases they even refuse to define how much is too much.
Customers across the country have been contacted by the telecom giant with a warning to curb excessive bandwidth consumption or risk a one-year service termination. Comcast, however, is refusing to reveal how much bandwidth use is allowed, making it impossible for customers to know if they are in danger of violating Comcast’s limit.
Carreiro said he received a message from a Comcast Security Assurance representative in December, who warned him that he was hogging too much of the company’s bandwidth and needed to cut down. When Carreiro contacted customer service about the call, they had no idea what he was talking about and suggested it was a prank phone call. Unconvinced, Carreiro contacted Comcast several more times, but was again told there was no problem.
A month later, he woke up to a dead Internet connection. Customer service directed him to the Security Assurance division, which Carreiro said informed him he would now be without service for one year.
Meanwhile, Verizon Wireless is moving away from using the word “Unlimited” in their marketing and reportedly has placed a 5GB cap on downloads. But, don’t head over to YouTube as Verizon’s EULA still restricts everything but browsing and e-mail. Verizon Wireless seems to be stuck in 1999 or something… or rather they want you to ONLY use their VCAST service which nickels and dimes you every step of the way.
[Comcast Cuts Off Bandwidth Hogs]
[Leaked Verizon Memo: Stop Saying 'Unlimited']
[tags]ISPs, ISP, cable, cellular, wireless, broadband, comcast, cox, verizon, time warner[/tags]
7 Comments
static.ip
April 7th, 2007
at 11:57am
Are you kidding? They are taking 100 times over the average use. It’s not a limit, it’s stopping abuse of the service. If someone wants to download over 500Gb a month, get a frickin’ dedicated line!! Do you realize how much that is for a home user? That’s a terabyte every 2 months.
You are allowed to drive on the freeway, that doesn’t mean you can drive in two lanes at the same time.
marc klink
April 7th, 2007
at 11:40pm
The comment above misses the point…if you say something is unlimited, then anything you do to limit the assumed usage is a violation of the contract, whether actual or implied. In street parlance, when you advertise something like this it’s time to ‘put up or shut up’.
Joseph Palumbo
April 8th, 2007
at 2:54pm
With the advent of the mobile office, many professionals are relying on this unlimited mobile EVDO service for their business needs. It’s entirely unfair for these companies to be restricting the use of their bandwidth unless that is explicitly stated in the “bold print” as opposed to the granular semantics of the EULA.
Ian Murray
April 11th, 2007
at 2:42pm
This is totally unfair and if people put up with it they are missing out on their rights If something is advertized as “unlimited’ Then it has to be unlimited. I live in Australia and if this kind of thing happened here, the company would be quickly facing court charges for contavening our “Truth in advertizing” laws
sjc1963
April 13th, 2007
at 10:40am
I’ve seen some ISPs that offer an account, where you pay much more, and then you can actually have “unlimited” access.
FG
December 20th, 2007
at 10:59am
So far Ive only heard of cable companies doing this except for Verizon .I can see a DSL company punching out on all the cable ISP’s in the future with true unlimited FO . Cable companys need to step off the throne anyway they’ve controlled everything for to long now .
Everything comes to a End at some point .
Alan Curtis Montgomery
July 7th, 2008
at 7:29am
I think unfortunately in the name of fairness to other customers, internet security, safety of children, copyright laws, and legal restrictions ISPs will only put more and more restrictions on internet users, limiting bandwidth is just the beginning. I think as long as someone is not using their internet connection as a huge web server, hacking networks, or downloading beyond what is possible for a family to ie. someone downloading “terabytes of files”, then with all the bandwidth these large companies have available restrictions are just a big corporations attempt to save money instead of upgrading their network and an attempt to squeeze as many customers into their service areas as possible!