There's no such thing as Unlimited Data

These "semantic" discussions about what wording means get boring and heated
And yes I've been involved with some of them
No there cannot be unlimited storage,
Yes there can be unlimited "access" aka unrestricted, within the confines of what the network can carry, you can't use a billion gigabytes if the network won't carry it, and just because the provider gives you an all you can use buffet, doesn't mean they have to provide gourmet service
Arguing that something is limited, because a 3g hotspot doesn't give the same thruput as fiber optic is just using poor logic, (I really want to say it's asinine)

paulcardoza wrote:
Sorry Sam_Spade, but you are wrong on this.

No I'm not.
Just because nobody has challenged them in court means virtually nothing.
The FTC does little to nothing about false advertising anymore.
Nobody will blow $$$$$ against deep pockets to file their own suit.

But I've been in court enough to know that you will NOT prevail if your biggest claim is that a word you used has a different meaning than what is commonly understood.

I (my family) actually won a case in the Illinois Supreme Court over a similar issue with a railroad right-of-way that went back to the 1860's.

Unlimited means no limits. A limit on speed is a limit. A limit on amount is a limit. Any kind of a limit is NOT unlimited.

Done.

Sorry Sam_Spade, but you are wrong on this. Read the T&C's of any wireless agreement. There is no guarantee or promise of any specific throughput speeds. Their lawyers are smart enough to have covered all the bases. wa8yxm has it exactly right.

Now, the political consequences of throttling is an entirely different matter. As we have seen, the practice creates a public uproar (similar to yours!). If the practice continues it is kept very low-key so as to not generate such an uproar.

wa8yxm wrote:

And therein liks the problem.. it truly is unlimited data,, just not UNLIMITED HIGH SPEED DATA.. Big difference.

Bull. You can not make up your own definition of words.

Unlimited means: NO limits.....to quantity or quality.
ANY limit, either on total quantity OR to the speed of delivery IS A LIMIT.

The next time a cop stops you, try explaining that the speed limit is not really a limit at all.

The problem is the difference between the Seller's definition of "Unlimited Data" and the buyer's.

Unlimited data means just that. IF I were parked in Seneca, SC instead of Townsend, GA I could download hundreds of Gigs of Data via my cell phone, NO ADDITIONAL CHARGE...

But what the customer thinks and this includes the author of that article (though he correctly stated Sprint's policy) is this: Unlimited 4GLTE.

No, I do not get that.. When I "hit the limit" (10 gigs per month plus carry over from last month if applicable) speeds drop. Now I understand this.

But many do not.

And therein liks the problem.. it truly is unlimited data,, just not UNLIMITED HIGH SPEED DATA.. Big difference.

When we left the road we got Charter unlimited data and 45 gb per second.
I have been a heavy user of Netflix in the evenings and my wife and I both spend a fair amount of time on the web. According to my router I have used 178 Gb in the last 20 days.
So far I have not been throttled.

wildtoad wrote:
Kind of like offering an all you can eat buffet and expecting people to control themselves. Doesn't happen.

Most do, but the ones who don't ruin it for the rest of us...like almost everything in this world.

Those companies were idiots in offering unlimited storage of data in the first place (and the guy who suggested it should be retired) as evidenced by the users that took them at their word.

Offering unlimited, unthrottled bandwitdh is another idea that has resulted in both abuse and customer dissatisfaction. When you can not control who, how many, how much you have no business offering unlimited anything.

Kind of like offering an all you can eat buffet and expecting people to control themselves. Doesn't happen.

T.A.N.S.T.A.A.F.L.


lawsuit n. A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage. Ambrose Bierce

there's "unlimited" as in not having any predefined limit and then there's being greedy and abusive. I don't think it's dishonest to advertise a service as unlimited, in meaning no pre-defined limit. any rational person should realize there's no such thing as unlimited, even the Sun's energy or the air we breath has limits, let alone a (rather cheap) cellular phone plan.

I support telcoms that disconnect abusive customers - they're ruining the network for the rest of us. Somebody transferring huge amounts of data every month is not being reasonable, they're being greedy. Either they're A doing it for commercial gain, and should be paying a commercial rate (IE working while on the road) or B they're conducting some sort of illegal / gray area file transfers. even streaming netflix / amazon for 8 hours a day doesn't use the 100s of GB that some abusers rack up. They're downloading pirate movies or pirate software, how do I know? I may have done that sort of thing a long long time ago when I was a youngster.