Virgin Mobile to throttle 'unlimited' mobile broadband
Bandwidth penalty for transferring 5GB imposed
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Virgin Mobile's US division has decided its network can no longer support truly all-you-can-eat mobile broadband without slowing down uploads and downloads.
VM's Broadband2Go package provides customers with unlimited data transfers for a $40-a-month fee. From 15 February, they will still have access to as much data as they like each month, but their bandwidth is throttled when they exceed 5GB, for the rest of the month.
T-Mobile US did the same thing in April 2010.
This is an interesting approach to the problem of consumers who dare to think that subscribing to an unlimited package means they can send and receive lots and lots of data. VM's conclusion: they can't, not without affecting other users.
British mobile internet users have grown accustomed to either paying a premium for the data the transfer beyond a contracted limit, or to having their access cut until the start of the next 30-day period.
VM clearly feels it needs to dissuade customers from transferring too much data, but it's choosing to squeeze their pipes rather than pummel their wallets.
VM said using the package for email, browsing and music downloads shouldn't be affected - they won't be using much more than 5GB, if they go past the limit at all. But it is likely to hinder very active torrenters and folk downloading or streaming movies from the likes of iTunes and Netflix.
That will come as a blow to many, particularly as we're all being increasingly encouraged by technology and media companies to connect more kit to the net, and access ever more multimedia content through it. ®
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COMMENTS
that would be all well and good
then dont call it "unlimited." call it "Capped at 5G." See the difference there? One is a blantent lie, the other is the truth. Don't we have laws about blantently lieing in an advertisement?
My problems isn't capping, my problem is that they call something "unlimited" when it clearly is not. Frankly, I think they need to start fineing these lieing bastards per instance (an instance being each copy or performance of the advertisement).
I feel no pity for these twits, If they determand that most people do not use more then 5G, set the cap at 6G and point out that's more then you will use.
"transferring too much data"
That is a perverse sentence. They are an ISP... they *sell* data. They should *want* to sell you as much as possible. The trouble their stupid pricing scheme. Only one scheme is fair on a shared resource: bill by usage. $0.10 / GB for as many GB as you like. No $50 for 5 GB then $0.20/GB after that. No throttling, no cut-off, no "Unlimited*"
* Unlimited plans have limits. Mileage may vary. Data may be subject to monitoring or modification.
Nice timing
Though I would consider it actionable. If you sell "unlimited" data at a certain speed, you can't just say, "oh but when we said unlimited, we really ment $this_limit" or try the alternative "when we said $speed we really ment $much_lower_speed after $this_limit". If you can't deliver it, you can't sell it. No matter how reasonable your caps seem to you, or how necessary to proper functioning of the network you've built.
And yes, that means that if you want to cap anything at all you can't sell it as "unlimited data". Truth in advertising and all that.
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