Verizon is cracking down on some Unlimited users who use exactly what they paid for

[elkenrod]

Don't call an unlimited plan, "unlimited"

 

problem solved.

 

Recall the "unlimited minutes" for phone call days.  They allowed you to make unlimited calls because their infrastructure supported it.

Now that the infrastructure doesn't support unlimited data, they shouldn't use the same marketing. 

[Big Head Tech]

27 minutes ago, elkenrod said:

Don't call an unlimited plan, "unlimited"

 

problem solved.

 

Recall the "unlimited minutes" for phone call days.  They allowed you to make unlimited calls because their infrastructure supported it.

Now that the infrastructure doesn't support unlimited data, they shouldn't use the same marketing. 

But they are not marketing it?  It was an OLD REMOVED feature that is no longer available and hasn't been for 4 years.  That is why they are removing it completely.

[elkenrod]

4 minutes ago, Snaeb said:

But they are not marketing it?  It was an OLD REMOVED feature that is no longer available and hasn't been for 4 years.  That is why they are removing it completely.

 

I see.  Didn't read the details, but rather responding more to thread title.  So are these people just grandfathered in?  I don't see the need for the drama if they can just change the TOS.

[apm]

i pay 20 eur for 3gb 3g and full flat.

i dont even need more, because i have wifi everywhere.

[refinedskillz]

9 hours ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

Were you able to measure the ping if you played GTA Online?

Yeah, I was getting like 30-50

[ultravidrah!]

23$ a month gets me unlimited everything... In Slovenia

[SImoHayha]

It seems the people at Version, all failed English in college and high school years. They need to read a dictionary for the word " Unlimited

 

Either be upfront about it, or don't provide a " Service " that offers " unlimited "data. End of discussion .

 

I hate companies that do this shit, just because they have power its like " OOoooo by unlimited, we meant by not reading the entire contract, you have adhered to. Unlimited actually means limited.

[PlayStation 2]

4 hours ago, refinedskillz said:

Yeah, I was getting like 30-50

God damn that's good. 

[Nineshadow]

13 hours ago, Sakkura said:

To be fair, Romania has pretty low prices (and wages) in general. Still pretty amazingly cheap.

Yup. I still have an amazing plan.

For example, a plan with unlimited voice calls and SMS and 1GB of 4G at Vodafone is 13 EUR/month. The most expensive plan I can find is 89EUR/month and offers 12GB of 4G.

[79wjd]

6 hours ago, elkenrod said:

 

I see.  Didn't read the details, but rather responding more to thread title.  So are these people just grandfathered in?  I don't see the need for the drama if they can just change the TOS.

They're grandfathered in and at any point after the contract ended (which would have been two to three years ago at the latest) Verizon has/had the right to terminate the unlimited plan. There reason why this is technically an issue is if the plan is still listed as unlimited on these peoples accounts and/or if they weren't sent information about a policy change then Verizon is wrong in changing the way their unlimited plan works.

 

EDIT: I just realized Verizon isn't changing the policy mid month on people. They're giving people until August 31st to adjust their plan. Verizon has every right to do this and while it may suck to lose your unlimited plan there is literally zero ground to stand on against Verizon.

[Lukiose]

Lol as a citizen living in Singapore on a 500MBps line I easily break 2TB per month torrenting and seeding shows

No issue getting flagged here

[mikeeginger]

Does this not brake net neutrality rules? 

[79wjd]

38 minutes ago, mikeeginger said:

Does this not brake net neutrality rules? 

How so?

 

Verizon simply doesn't want to offer an Unlimited plan anymore, and as ALL unlimited contracts ended (2-3 years ago at the latest) they have every right to cancel their Unlimited offerings. At this point anyone who still has unlimited data has been grandfathered in and is paying on a month-to-month basis. 

[Sakkura]

1 hour ago, djdwosk97 said:

They're grandfathered in and at any point after the contract ended (which would have been two to three years ago at the latest) Verizon has/had the right to terminate the unlimited plan. There reason why this is technically an issue is if the plan is still listed as unlimited on these peoples accounts and/or if they weren't sent information about a policy change then Verizon is wrong in changing the way their unlimited plan works.

 

EDIT: I just realized Verizon isn't changing the policy mid month on people. They're giving people until August 31st to adjust their plan. Verizon has every right to do this and while it may suck to lose your unlimited plan there is literally zero ground to stand on against Verizon.

It's fine that they're changing it and giving notice. The problem is they're still keeping the unlimited plans around. So then moving a few of the people on unlimited plans to other plans is discriminatory.

[AlTech]

49 minutes ago, mikeeginger said:

Does this not brake net neutrality rules? 

Yes because Facebook's "Free Basics" is just a way to get people to signup for facebook.

[79wjd]

3 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

It's fine that they're changing it and giving notice. The problem is they're still keeping the unlimited plans around. So then moving a few of the people on unlimited plans to other plans is discriminatory.

I don't really see an issue with it. They're targeting consumers who are using an unreasonable amount of data (over 100GB), which can and likely does affect other users. So by not doing anything Verizon is throwing the majority of its customers under a bus as they wouldn't be able to guarantee a certain level of service. So then why not terminate the unlimited plan altogether? Probably for the same reason that they've allowed people to keep it for the last four years -- because it doesn't cost them much as most people are using it fairly (i.e. not to torrent on/use as a replacement for a home network where one is available) and so there isn't a need to terminate the plans and upset people. 

[Sakkura]

1 minute ago, djdwosk97 said:

I don't really see an issue with it. They're targeting consumers who are using an unreasonable amount of data (over 100GB), which can and likely does affect other users. So by not doing anything Verizon is throwing the majority of its customers under a bus as they wouldn't be able to guarantee a certain level of service. So then why not terminate the unlimited plan altogether? Probably for the same reason that they've allowed people to keep it for the last four years -- because it doesn't cost them much as most people are using it fairly (i.e. not to torrent on/use as a replacement for a home network where one is available) and so there isn't a need to terminate the plans and upset people. 

They are targeting users of an unlimited data plan breaking a data limit. That's making their "unlimited" claim a lie. What they should do is transition ALL the people on these old unlimited plans to newer plans.

[79wjd]

6 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

They are targeting users of an unlimited data plan breaking a data limit. That's making their "unlimited" claim a lie. What they should do is transition ALL the people on these old unlimited plans to newer plans.

It's unlimited under fair use, these people aren't using it fairly. 

Quote

These users are using data amounts well in excess of our largest plan size (100GB). While the Verizon Plan at 100GB is designed to be shared across multiple users, each line receiving notification to move to the new Verizon Plan is using well in excess of that on a single device.

 

-spokesperson from Verizon on Ars Technica

 

It's like how a company can't just stick something unreasonable in a contract and force you to adhere to it just because you clicked accept. When you sign a contract you do so under the pretense that it will be fair. That should work in both directions. 

[Sakkura]

11 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

It's unlimited under fair use, these people aren't using it fairly.

That means it's unlimited except for a limit.

[79wjd]

39 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

That means it's unlimited except for a limit.

Most things in life aren't so cut and dry. There are grey areas to everything. I don't see why an unfair clause in a contract wouldn't apply to a consumer who signs a contract, but it should to a producer who signs a contract. 

 

Just as you make the assumption that a company isn't going to ask you to sign your house away when you blindly accept a contract, a company should be able to make the assumption that you will use their service fairly. 

[DXMember]

you mean just like Microsoft OneDrive with it's unlimited storage?

 

they got grumpy because some dude was using 75TB on his unlimited cloud storage

[79wjd]

54 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

That means it's unlimited except for a limit.

Considering that the number of people who use over 100GB/device per month is probably irrelevantly small I have a hard time believing they're doing this for monetary reasons, so I can only assume that they are genuinely doing it intheir customers best interest. 

Quote

We can, without notice, limit, suspend or end your Service or any agreement with you for any good cause, including, but not limited to: (1) if you: (a) breach this Agreement; (b) resell your Service; (c) use your Service for any illegal purpose, including use that violates trade and economic sanctions and prohibitions promulgated by any US governmental agency; (d) install, deploy or use any regeneration equipment or similar mechanism (for example, a repeater) to originate, amplify, enhance, retransmit or regenerate an RF signal without our permission; (e) steal from or lie to us; or, if you're a Postpay customer; (f) do not pay your bill on time; (g) incur charges larger than a required deposit or billing limit, or materially in excess of your monthly access charges (even if we haven't yet billed the charges); (h) provide credit information we can't verify; or (i) are unable to pay us or go bankrupt; or (2) if you, any user of your device or any line of service on your account, or any account manager on your account: (a) threaten, harass, or use vulgar and/or inappropriate language toward our representatives; (b) interfere with our operations; (c) "spam," or engage in other abusive messaging or calling; (d) modify your device from its manufacturer's specifications; or (e) use your Service in a way that negatively affects our network or other customers. We can also temporarily limit your Service for any operational or governmental reason.

-Verizon Wireless Customer Agreement

http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/support/customer-agreement

 

Quote

If you subscribe to a data plan or package with an unlimited data allowance, there is an additional monthly fee to do so.

..... 
 
We further reserve the right to take measures to protect our network and other users from harm, compromised capacity or degradation in performance. These measures may impact your service, and we reserve the right to deny, modify or terminate service, with or without notice, to anyone we believe is using Data Plans or Features in a manner that adversely impacts our network. We may monitor your compliance, or the compliance of other subscribers, with these terms and conditions, but we will not monitor the content of your communications except as otherwise expressly permitted or required by law. Seewww.verizonwireless.com/privacy.

-The Verizon Plan - plan information

[Sakkura]

1 hour ago, djdwosk97 said:

Considering that the number of people who use over 100GB/device per month is probably irrelevantly small I have a hard time believing they're doing this for monetary reasons, so I can only assume that they are genuinely doing it intheir customers best interest.

Or they could fix their network to handle what they advertised and sold to people, instead of taking service away from people who use it the way it was advertised to be usable.

[79wjd]

3 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

Or they could fix their network to handle what they advertised and sold to people, instead of taking service away from people who use it the way it was advertised to be usable.

Except that it was advertised as unlimited data back when 4G was just getting going. Now they don't advertise unlimited data because they don't have the infrastructure to sustain that kind of use. They could either take it away from everybody and upset all of the customers who are still on the unlimited plan, OR they can just take those who are abusing it off. I really don't see how this is a bad thing. And expecting them to build up the infrastructure so that it can sustain these types of use cases is unrealistic. 

[Sakkura]

2 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

Except that it was advertised as unlimited data back when 4G was just getting going. Now they don't advertise unlimited data because they don't have the infrastructure to sustain that kind of use. They could either take it away from everybody and upset all of the customers who are still on the unlimited plan, OR they can just take those who are abusing it off. I really don't see how this is a bad thing. And expecting them to build up the infrastructure so that it can sustain these types of use cases is unrealistic. 

If they don't have the infrastructure, they should either stop offering the unlimited plan or upgrade their infrastructure. Taking the unlimited plan away from those not really using the unlimited data wouldn't have to be a downgrade. They could just change the plan to be the same except with eg. a 100GB data cap. If that's where they're cutting it off anyway, what's the point of calling it unlimited for anyone?