Britain’s advertising regulators dismissed a complaint about a 3G internet plan which has a 250MB monthly cap, but which is advertised as “unlimited.” In a mixed ruling, it agreed with retailer Carphone Warehouse that the ad was accurate because “the 250 MB monthly usage limit was far in excess of the amount of data that an average customer would use.”
The Advertising Standards Authority is usually quite savvy about technology, and loves to hang advertisers with their own weasel-worded marketing bullshit. This time, however, it avoids the obvious slam-dunk.
Even more curiously, the bandwidth numbers it accepts as accurate would mean this “unlimited” plan means you could only stream a handful of videos and songs a day. And yet…
We considered that the vast majority of customers were unaffected by the data limit, and we therefore concluded that the fair usage policy did not contradict the claim “includes unlimited data”.
That it’s factually incorrect is not a problem: one thinks of a cavemen who denies infinity exists because he’s never met anyone who could count past four. To think that American customers complain that the new 5GB cap on most data plans isn’t enough!
The ASA is finessing its way around the obvious, indisputable meaning of the word “unlimited.” Why? Perhaps it knows it wouldn’t get much sleep if it set that precedent: it’s an advertising cliche as ubiquitous there as it is here.
Ruling [ASA]
Why not, Netflix claims “unlimited” only they lie about it – at least the people are upfront.
Netflix uses a quota system and if you receiving more DVD’s in a month than they’ve determined is “resonable” they slow your returns and alter your access to popular DVDs (it is NOT first come first served) – - only, they’re all trained to lie about it as part of Netflix policy.
I have a bandwidth monitoring widget which says I’ve pulled down 10 gig of stuff this month. And I haven’t used bittorrent or any of those super illegal file sharing technologies. Just browsing and watching Youtube videos.
The best thing about citing the ‘average user’ as a justification for draconian usage policies is that they include your grandma who uses her DSL to check her email twice a month, and people who pay for accounts that they’re intending to get around to using someday.
The set of ‘average users’ doesn’t include anyone who’s ever read this site. Or probably anyone you know, except maybe the aforementioned grandma.
BTW, my iphone usage this month is 3.3GB. And that’s mostly Pandora.
In related news, I finally added a data plan to my phone. In the six hours after I ordered it and before it actually became active (oops), I burned through 240kB for $12.
This data plan is “unlimited” for $15. I’m not totally sure what “unlimited” means but it’s more than 300kB.
Bell uses some kind of strange voodoo math.
Can anyone explain this willful ignorance for “unlimited” not really meaning unlimited. It seems pretty cut and dry; “without limit” i.e. not capped.
I routinely move terabytes each and every month with my FiOS 20/20 account.
My data plan is still only EDGE (as I’m debating whether I tether often enough to justify the extra $5/month for UMTS), but if I did I’m sure I’d easily hit 5GB within a week.
Bandwidth caps are a terrible idea, period.
Telecom managers need a lecture on bandwidth by George Gilder.
You have to wonder what sort of evidence the board considered when making this decision. I’ll bet it came directly from the ISPs, who would of course focus on the sort of users #3 mentions.