When does unlimited really mean limited? When you are dealing with phone companies and Internet providers. On Tuesday, Verizon Wireless, under investigation by the New York State Attorney General’s office, agreed to change it’s marketing campaign for “unlimited” Internet access plans and to over $1,000,000 in fines and restitutions to it’s customer that were over billed or whose accounts were terminated for “excessive use” of their supposedly unlimited Internet access plans.
Comcast, the nation’s 2nd largest Internet Service Provider, has also admitted that their residential unlimited Internet access has limited. Comcast has disconnected some users for exceeding those limits. However, Comcast won’t confirm what those limits are. They will only say that in order to provide quality service to all its users some very heavy users have been disconnected for using an enormously high amount on bandwidth.
My own father received a letter from his cable company, Blue Ridge Communications, warning him about excess usage and threatening to disconnect his service if he did not curb his Internet usage. They claimed he was downloading hundreds of gigabytes per month. The amount of usage they claimed was virtually impossible. They were showing usage even when his computer was turned off. It turned out to be a faulty cable modem, but the point is that they sold him an unlimited package that came with hidden limits.
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