I just wanted to share a good article by Josh Smith of Notebooks.com. Josh sounds about as fed up with US carriers and their “unlimited inch data plans as I am.
Every major US carrier advertises unlimited data plans, but I don’t believe any of them are actually unlimited, in the sense that, you know, the word actually means. Pretty much all are capped at 5GB or lower, but they still advertise saying that they are “unlimited inch. Josh has compiled a simple list of steps to ensure that this sort of insanity doesn’t continue. It’s all pretty much common sense, but it seems that it these simple guidelines are beyond what makes sense to US carriers.
I’ve written about such unlimited nonsense on a number of occasions. Consider this my signature to a petition to prevent carriers from trying to lead users astray by misusing words.
We’ve got lots of EU readers here at Carrypad: have you had similarly ridiculous contortions of the definitions of such words, or are EU carriers less evil than their US counterparts? Feel free to let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Heh. The other day I was just looking at the fine print on a bus ad for Virgin Mobile’s new $25/month Android phone voice/data service that was “unlimited.” In the fine print, it said, and I quote: “Unlimited does not mean unreasonable.” It takes a LAWYER to draft that!
Here in Germany they call these plans “flatrate”. As a phone contract it allways means unlimited calls to all numbers except mobile or special services unless included.
As a data plan they all cap it. Biggest size is 5GB, after that we’re capped at at EDGE-speed i.e. 220kbit/s. I pay ~€20,- (~USD27,-) for my 5GB capped data plan, but it horrifies me that I might be dependant on this capped plan one day to be able to download my backup files from the cloud.
A friend of mine tried to get a true unlimited plan a few weeks ago with an offer to pay a to be determined by the carrier sum more – without any luck at all. Her offer was turned down instantly.
Oh, btw. over here free WiFi is very rare. Even paid WiFi is hard to find and if found expensive.
To point my friends situation out directly: She is stationed in a small town, no phone line in her apartement, her fiance and her cats live 350miles from there, and all she can do thanks to these phantastic data plans is Skype video chat for about 4hrs per month at USD27,-. Guess what, she uses her mobile voice flatrate to call her lover, checks her eMail at work, and won’t pay for any data plan at all.
Here in the U.K. ‘3’ just launched there ‘all you can eat’ plan a couple of months ago.
This gives you 2000 cross network minutes, 5000 ‘3 to 3’ minutes and ‘all you can eat’ data which truly is unlimited. all for £25 on a 12 month contract sim only.
aside from that all the other mobile companies advertise thier plans as unlimited but they’re capped at 1gb, 3gb, or max 5gb.
3 is actually a good company for mobile data , i have a data only plan with them for the past 18 months at £15 for 15gb. i’ll be jumping to the all u can eat plan soon.
but yeah , they really need to change the wording, i mean unlimited should mean unlimited.
just to add what the poster said about the three network.
after using the three all you can eat data, an allowance shows on your account, this varys from person to person, example, mine shows 3GB.
before this allowance, the speed is anything from 3mbps upward. after this “allowance” which they are telling us to ignore, runs out, the speed drops through the floor.
It is indeed all you can eat data but be wary of the kind of speeds you will get. take a look at the three blog, they are adamant that there isnt any kind of traffic management.
as a user, i can tell you there is, three just arent being truthful about it.
In France, all unlimited data plans I know are limited in volume (but unlimited in connection time, I guess that’s the trick).
Nearby countries like Spain have real unlimited plans (volume and time) for 25€ a month (just for data).
Oops, mistake, the 25€ offer was without taxes and capped at 5GB
Capped at 128kbps after 5GB, though it’s still usable without extra cost.
In Finland, we’ve got unlimited (no caps) data at 384 kbps for 4.90€/month, 1 Mbps for 9.90€/month and unlimited speeds (up to 14 Mbps) for 13.90€/month.
Basic fee for a non-minutes plan is around 0.66€/month. Calls are pay as you go, starting at 6.6 cents a minute or so.
The operators do reserve the right to prioritize traffic and apply caps, but I have yet to see them do so. They even give you a second SIM card and a USB stick modem to use with your laptop if you sign a 24 month contract, at no extra fees.
Two years back I used the 384 kbps deal as my main internet connection for five months, and did 40 to 60 gigs a month of traffic without any problems.
Here in portugal we just had a “no limits” plan declared as false advertising (it only included 2000 in network minutes/month,1500sms/day and 500 MB/month). In response the operator increased it to 4000 min and changed the advertising to “never ending”. What a joke!