I have had a Vodafone 3G data card for over 2 years. I have the top package that you can get – Vodafone Data Unlimited. Now when you read unlimited what does that mean? To me that means there is no limit. If you look there is a little * after “none”.
At the bottom in small, light grey text you find:
*The Vodafone Data Unlimited and Vodafone Data Travel plans are subject to Vodafone’s fair usage policy. This means that a customer’s UK usage must not exceed 1Gb per user account in a month. We don’t expect customers to exceed this limit but if a customer’s usage is in excess of 1Gb we may ask them to moderate their usage. If a customer fails to do so, we reserve the right to move them to another Vodafone data plan or charge them for the excess usage. Long-term or persistent usage in excess of the limit may also result in suspension or termination of the service.
How can you possibly sell something as unlimited when there is a limit? Does that not fall into the false adverting category?
The Vodafone software does not tell me how much I have used or if it does I can’t find it on my mac so I had to phone to find out what I was on for the month. They told me I had gone over my limit and it would be £2.30 per MB. According to the note they will need to contact me and ask me to moderate my usage. Not what they said on the phone.
I noticed while trying to sign up to a T-Mobile hotspot that they also have a fair usage policy.
£20 price plan
Subscription provides unlimited use (subject to the following fair use policy) of T-Mobile hotspots in the UK and 300 minutes a month to use at BT Openzone owned and operated Hotspots in the UK.
Fair Use Policy:
Customers who make excessive use of the service may be asked to reduce their use. If usage continues to be excessive, T-Mobile may move these customers to another plan. T-Mobile currently considers “excessive” use to be 30GB or more of data per month (sent and received). We reserve the right to vary this policy, but will notify you if we do.
Subject to a single, immediately repeatable, session of 6 hours in duration.
HotSpot terms and conditions apply.
Username and password are non-transferable.
It does appear that the prices for 3G data cards actually have the limit and charges available.
T-Mobile costings
O2 is even better at hiding it. They don’t even have a mark to say that it is limited. You have to read the terms at the bottom of the page.
Data Max Fair usage Policy
The Data Max 1024 subscription package allows you unlimited use of O2’s 3G/GPRS Mobile Data Services. Fair usage policy applies and average monthly usage is expected to be below 1024mb. O2 reserves the right to apply extra charges or to withdraw the Data Max 1024 service from any individual at any time in the case of suspected overuse or abuse of the service.
Where did the fair usage policy come from and how has it been allowed to exist? If someone knows they will use a lot of bandwidth then let them pay for it and use it. We need to get the use of “fair policy” stopped. Its just another way for the big companies to get the small guys.
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Same thing happened to me with Bulldog Broadband. No warnings you just get whacked with charges that you find out about 3 months later. With a fast 3G connection, how can they expect you to stay under a single gig, who dictates “fair”. This practice should be banned.
[...] Niqui has posted something many people are getting more and more frustrated by lately, “Fair Usage”. This term is being overly abused and is a blatent form of misleading the public. [...]
I don’t understand how they can get away with it, just because they bury it in some small print doesn’t make their advertising any less misleading. I’ve seen adverts on tv that don’t even have the small print!
[...] Fair usage policy = false advertising Funny, just as Demon Internet’s fair use policy sneaks up on me. Niqui has a similar run in with Vodafone. (tags: fairusepolicy mobile vodafone consumer) [...]
I see where you are coming from but you seem a little naive to think that this really would be unlimited – it never is and never has been, be it broadband, phone calls or anything else.
The fact that this is misleading is another matter and something that should give you a good base for attack. Also the limits imposed are way too low, I’d consider this heavily capped – far from unlimited.
Advertising like this needs to stop, just don’t expect them to ever offer truly unlimited features.
I am not expecting it to be unlimited. I am expecting them to be honest about the service.
i moved to talktalk for unlimited broadband, i used bittorrent for a few weeks then it went dead, talktalk cut my p2p downloads off with no warning then read this…
TALKTALK FAIR USAGE POLICY
Our fair use policy is designed to ensure your service is fast and reliable 24 hours a day. A very small number of customers use file-sharing software (commonly known as “peer to peer” or P2P) or other applications, which constantly send and receive video and other very large files.
This type of activity uses a huge amount of bandwidth and can significantly reduce the speed at which our other customers can access the Internet, especially at peak times
Our fair use policy restricts this high bandwidth activity in peak hours to allow the majority of customers to use their broadband connection for normal residential usage (I.e: surfing, e-mail, online gaming etc). This allows us to give you a high quality service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
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im in a 18 month contract now and well p!$$ed off !!! i will read the small print next time !
I absolutely agree that fair usage plans are just a way for companies to ensure they can offer customers unlimited* services whilsts making maximum profits. I think the best way to ensure this is abolished is
moving to companies that dont have caps on customers usage. For example Telewest ltd
For Vodafone UK to advertise and sell someone a data unlimited contract without even supplying that person with information on the fair usage policy is criminal. This happened to me and as a result of downloading 2Gb in one month (the first month to go over), they have now charged me 2000 pounds. This is absolutley outrageous and I will be taking this to court! Don’t let them get away with it if it happens to you!
Sky does the same thing, but someone must have got onto them about it, because it now says “almost unlimited” on their broadband info pages.
http://check.skybroadband.com/onnet.aspx
Subject to fair use polocy ovcourse…
On a similar note, T-Mobile UK offers ‘Equivalent of £180′ for £52… How can that even make sense. If you can buy something for £52, how can it be worth £180? Isnt that self-announced false advertising?
In response to Stefan Richter
Your quote;-
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“I see where you are coming from but you seem a little naive to think that this really would be unlimited – it never is and never has been, be it broadband, phone calls or anything else.”
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You are completely WRONG! I had my broadband through Pipex for years with NO “Fair Usage Policy” (FUP), it WAS completely unlimited. Originally Pipex started off with no FUP with any of their accounts, then they started implementing FUP with their “cheaper” accounts. I got around this by opting for either a “Business” account when I had my business, (which they also eventually implemented FUP) and then by opting for a more expensive “MAX” service with no FUP.
Unfortunately, it now seems that even the most expensive Pipex accounts have a FUP & my connection is now languishing in the sludge of a Fair Usage Policy!
This is such a rip off! I can’t believe I have been such a good customer of Pipex for years and for years have paid a premium for my broadband, and yet my service has got WORSE & WORSE!
I am APPALLED that good customers can be treated this way! It’s like going into a garage, asking them to “Fill ‘Er Up”, only to be told “Yes sir we can fill you up, but we’ll have to do it in stages, you’ll need to come back every hour for top-ups, so you don’t go using all the fuel before everyone else”.
How ludicrous is that? But that’s what it amounts to!
Same thing happening to me, just like Lewis, i’m with TalkTalk for my broadband and phone package including line rental, i signed up for 2 yrs expecting to have a 40GB download limit per month, they never mentioned any p2p limits, i used P2P software ok for several months then they just cut it dead, i read there terms and the 40GB monthy limit turns out to not only be a download limit but upload+download combined, i’m now stuck in this contract with them but i can’t use p2p which is why i went with talktalk in the first place for there 40GB limit, this is false advertising, they need to make this clear when selling the product and not just by using a little *STAR
+TalkTalks customer service really is non-existent, i give up on them……..
I recently carried out a simple test, to find out a bit more about what kind of internet usage to expect against some new mobile broadband services advertised, I basically spend about 5 hours viewing youtube videos via a 1MB internet connection and monitoring the usage, and after 5 hours the combined usage (download/upload) had exceeded 14GB.
OK, I must admit 5 hours of youtube is a lot for one day, but even so, outside of these mobile phone services agreements such usage has never been an issue for other broadband providers.
I work in this industry and understand how service level agreements work, and while I can understand the impact on the overall service if some users were to leave a p2p application running 24/7, but stating that 1/2/3/5/10/15 or 40GB is a fair usage, for any normal broadband user, it surely has to be some kind of bad joke, who dictates that such levels of data should be the basis for a fair usage level agreements, the faster the internet pipe(or service provided) the quicker the user reaches the limit set by the provider. Are these companies saying that they not able to provide the services speeds which they are offering or claiming to provide and need to cap all users traffic in order for service to not to be affected?
Ofcom or some other relevant consumer/government body, should/needs to intervene and define proper broadband fair usage rules based on speed of services provided of what should consist to be fair usage, then force service providers to play fair, if necessary give out big fines and force providers to refund large sums of money which they have unfairly stolen from their customers, and annulled all long term contracts where users are locked into such misleading fair usage and limited services which customers do not need or want.