Ken's Tech Tips

442130 Responseshttp%3A%2F%2Fcow.neondragon.net%2Findex.php%2Fwhat-does-unlimited-really-mean-mobile-fair-usage-allowancesWhat+does+%22unlimited%22+really+mean%3F+Mobile+fair+usage+allowances2010-02-09+16%3A00%3A39Kenhttp%3A%2F%2Fcow.neondragon.net%2F%3Fp%3D4421 to “What does “unlimited” really mean? Mobile fair usage allowances”

1. # Kenon 11 Feb 2010 at 4:53 pm

   For anyone interested, see an adjudication from the Advertising Standards Authority which discusses Vodafone’s claim of 500MB/month as unlimited:

   http://www.asa.org.uk/Complaints-and-ASA-action/Adjudications/2009/12/Vodafone-Ltd/TF_ADJ_47835.aspx

2. # Marcoon 21 Mar 2010 at 8:53 pm

   The ASA is clearly in the side of these mobile companies despite having recognized that the use of the word “Unlimited” is a misleading advertise, when there is a clear limitation in the use of internet named “Fair Usage Policy” I still wondering why use the word unlimited and no for example “free internet access”….oh I know why they would fail to cheat costumers and see their business going in bankrupt

3. # HTC Desire Android Smartphone: £10/month on T-Mobile with unlimited texts, internet | Ken's Tech Tipson 23 Mar 2010 at 7:09 pm

   [...] contract is £10/month (24 month contract) with 100 minutes, 100 texts, unlimited internet (1GB fair usage) and one free flexible booster. There are several options with the flexible booster: for example [...]

4. # Which Orange Contract? - Android Forumson 19 Apr 2010 at 10:17 am

   [...] A couple of months ago while frequenting another unrelated forum someone asked this very question ie What does unlimited actually mean. After some dodgy replies i joined in and threw in a curve ball and mentioned the FUP, none of the other posters had heard of the FUP and thats when the thread took off. I did some quick research on various networks FUP's and it appeared at that time only O2 truly meant unlimited with absolutely NO FUP, the others had from 500mb to 750mb. Interestingly i just found this while googling and it looks quite recent dated Feb 2010…….. What does “unlimited” really mean? Mobile fair usage allowances | Ken's Tech Tips [...]

5. # How unlimited is your “unlimited mobile internet”? | Ken's Tech Tipson 29 Apr 2010 at 10:07 am

   [...] that this isn’t mobile internet is never unlimited in that sense – all networks have fair usage policies. Today we want to place the spotlight on “unlimited internet” packages. Just how [...]

6. # Kenon 29 Apr 2010 at 10:07 am

   There’s a post about fair usage on unlimited internet packages over at:
   http://cow.neondragon.net/index.php/how-unlimited-is-your-unlimited-mobile-internet

7. # andrewon 16 May 2010 at 4:46 pm

   May I ask what is the allowance on calls for O2 unlimited? Thanks a lot =D

8. # O2on 24 May 2010 at 1:45 pm

   O2 infomation you have is wrong, im on a 18month contract £35 month unlimited internet is not capped, on my iphone 3g iv used 20gb of data in 1 month, never had a problem with o2, i download alot of movies form itune and also use my jailbroken iphone as a modem..

9. # Kenon 24 May 2010 at 2:18 pm

   Hi,

   You are totally right in saying that there is no explicit fair usage limit for mobile contracts with “unlimited” internet. The limits refer to the PAYG Text and Web tariff and Web Bolt On. I am surprised that you haven’t received an angry phone call from O2 having used 20GB of data or tethering though…

   Ken

10. # Daveon 31 May 2010 at 12:07 pm

    O2 have different limits on their iPhone contracts to the rest of us mortals.

    Is an unpublished policy enforceable as you are unable to agree to it?

11. # Johnon 04 Jun 2010 at 11:44 am

    I’ve recently signed up to 3 and asked for a price plan over the phone which included unlimited internet. On day one of having the phone I managed to use my entire months allowance 500mb (which is not exactly unlimited) without really being on the internet much. I’ve had to switch off my internet access to avoid a £1000+ bill for my first month.

    Strangely enough I have to buy an extra unlimited addon to up my fair usage to 2Gb. Makes a mockery of the word “unlimited”.

12. # Olajideon 16 Jun 2010 at 12:46 pm

    I recent return to get a mobile phne that says Unlimited web I guess am new as the word unlimited means use as u choose, I believe we mobile phone user need to take all this mobile phone companies to court as they have the money to improve their infrastructures, which they don’t want to do so they complain again slow data. if a company cannot provide a service they need not give FALSE information to there clients.
    We all mobile phone users need to sue the companies as the next thing they will do is tell us which site we can visit if nothing is done now.

13. # Ilkayon 22 Jun 2010 at 11:19 pm

    I've recently signed up to 3 as well. It is a big dissappointment. What they do is cheating. "unlimited" internet with limits and there is no * sign anywhere.
    I signed up to 3 and two weeks later they sent me a message which says "you nearly reached your fair use allowance". I ve called costumer service and what they told me "dont worry your fair use allowance is 500 mgb and you still have 275 mgb". Than, I have read the terms and condition it says, we will send you message when you reached your 400 mgb allowance.And costumer service offerd me for this time free add on and they say if I like it I can contunieu with addon. I was really angry and I just hung up the phone. And 2 days later of my conversation with cs they sent me the same message.
    Yes Olajide we need to do something.. People are not stupid as they think.

14. # grahame30on 29 Jul 2010 at 10:36 pm

    well guys i dont bother with contract phones to much hassel ! but im with three and it works for me nicely becouse
    i text and surf the net not a talker.
    they give me when i put £10 on 150mb data / 5000 3-3 mins 300 text but 600 if i top up via my mastercard 5000 skype mins 10000 skype texts 10000 msm messages..
    now this lasts for three months knowbody else gives that kind of deal !
    but i use a truk load of data so each month i get a internet add on for £5 that gives me 2gb FAIR USE POICY ! im on my iphone watching tv on the train or listen to the radio on line without ever running out of data.
    but the morral of the storey is if you seek out deals from operators look at the base costs and add extras you think you will use then you will know how much you will use per month for me thats around £6.50 per month and there is no way in a miilion years you would get that kind of deal with a contract !
    if talking is a big issue the get a talk add on for £5 thats 100 cross network mins if i wanted that as well £11.50 pm still quids in !
    you still could not get a better deal on contract and you pepole are supposed to be high yeild customers and treated like gods and pay as you go customers are the lowest of the low ! i know witch id rather be !

15. # grahame30on 29 Jul 2010 at 10:51 pm

    just out of intrest a work friend of mine has been with 02 for some time and has allways enjoyed truely unlimited internet
    but when his contract ends in october he will only get 750mb data and he is on one of the highest plans so much for customer loyalty .
    he has now told me he is off to thee .
    i have an iphone 3gs he has iphone 4 and we did a speedtest of how fast o2 and three provide data well 02 very poor and three im happy to say wiped the floor with o2 TURBO POWER AS THE AD SAYS !

16. # markon 17 Aug 2010 at 3:44 pm

    had the same problem with 3 .. i was sold the contract over the phone and thought the unlimited internet was….unlimited .. so phoned up 3
    they said that from now on they are going to say how much internet there is instaed of using the word unlimited…..and changed my usage from 500mb to 2.5gb
    so there is hope just keep at them

17. # LEMon 27 Sep 2010 at 10:18 pm

    i had the exact same problem with orange, when i rang them to ask why my phone bill for this month was so high, they said you have gone over on your allowance for your data usage. i said i thought i had unlimited internet? and the man replied "you do have unlimted internet upto 500mb" so i said so i DONT have unlimited internet? and he insisted that it was the same thing. i then spolke to lady who made more sense who told me unlimited internet, with fair usage policy means that you have an allowance of 500mb per month and once you exceed that, you have a certain number of mb you can use in ONE day before it starts to charge you. i just cant remember what the number was. so for example if that number was 10mb. if you use 500mb of internet up. you then have 10mb per day. and if you exceed that in any one day it is ONLY then that you will get charged. and it will reset itself everyday. i still didnt think it was right that this is not explained to customers BEFORE they have a high phone bill. ALSO if you have an android phone, be careful of apps that use internet in the background and this can cause you to incur data charges as i have learnt. and im not happy at all!!!!

18. # looseron 29 Oct 2010 at 11:16 pm

    Lets not be retards about this, it is pimped as unlimited and then you get a bill for 0.0 + x, e.g not unlimited call it fair usage or whatever. If fair usage is 500mb then its a 500mb plan simple, not a maybe you wont use this so we will call it infinate/unlimited. Or maybe free car, if you drive it more than once a year you pay for the thing. Sad thing is people who say yeah call it unlimited dont know diddy about how the net works and that one website could give you 50mb usage in a short time.

19. # looseron 29 Oct 2010 at 11:17 pm

    IMHO let them fack u and then let the try FACK u in court, they wont take you into court as their ad's dont redifine the meaning of the word "UNLIMITED" and they know they will loose hands down. I would and do encourage them to take me to court for not paying the stupidly high costs for a per mb over the so called fair usage as this cant be justified in a court of law. Do your research into what the average vid dl mb is for youtube etc and the "FACT" that your mobile is attached to you 24 hours a day so could be more utilised than a home pc which costs max £10 per month for true unlimited internet. As I said they will loose the case hands down, its just sad most judges are out of sync with new tech that you have to take it to that lvl to make them realise the mobile comps are running a racket on 0 and 1.

20. # james snapron 11 Feb 2011 at 1:38 pm

    3 MOBILE DO NOT USE THE TERM "UNLIMITED" its all you can eat!! there for there is no fair usage policy on it as it is actually as much as you want to use

21. # Alikaton 06 Mar 2011 at 8:44 pm

    Like do the unlimted minutes like go to ur plan as minutes but dont Cost???? For T-moblie

22. # kieranon 16 Mar 2011 at 2:08 am

    what is the fair use policy for Tesco 'unlimited'

23. # tyleron 06 May 2011 at 7:17 pm

    3000 texts

24. # zeshanon 18 Aug 2011 at 10:44 pm

    What is the fair use policy for Skype on Three?
    There are no limits for Pay Monthly or Pay As You Go. You can make unlimited Skype-to-Skype calls and send an unlimited number of Skype instant messages.
    http://ask3.three.co.uk/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBISAPI.DLL…

    Your info is wrong!

25. # Kens Tech Tipson 19 Aug 2011 at 1:35 am

    Hi zeshan,

    Thanks for your comment – the fair usage policy has changed since the article was originally published in 2010. Originally Skype usage came with a fair usage of 5,000 messages per month. The Windows Live Messenger fair usage has also been removed according to the Three website.

    Ken

26. # Stephenon 02 Oct 2011 at 5:54 pm

    O2 have recently changed their “Unlimited Texts” on all their Pay As You Go (PAYG) tariff’s, Where this use to be 12,000 this has now been reduced to under 3000 per month.

    I spoke to customer services from this conversation it turns out that a minority of people have been using the full 12,000 texts “allegedly” fraudulently, by not actually paying for the service. O2 have therefore taken the decision to cap the number of texts sent on all PAYG where an “Unlimited” number applies.

    If you are in this position, ring O2 and get them to add “Happy Hour” where you can get an additional 60 texts per day between (I think) 19:00 and 20:00 for no extra charge.

27. # garyon 07 Oct 2011 at 3:31 pm

    i recently got the text from 02 telling me i had used all my unlimited texts, i usually do around 7k texts a month (text happy girlfriend) , i recieved no message that this was gonna be reduced, can they do this, currently on hold to them now gonna kick up a stink, does any other network provide proper unlimited pay as u go texts for ten quid

28. # melissaon 28 Dec 2011 at 9:31 pm

    Hi does anyone know of the tariff on o2 when you top-up £10.00 you get 300 texts and “unlimited” internet and still have your creidt??

    Please let me know if found out

29. # Wrightyon 04 Jan 2012 at 8:58 pm

    So are t-mobile are the only true unlimited-unlimited network then?? :/ I was with O2 and the 12,000 was more than enough but once they decreased it to 3,000 I started to go over

30. # Jameson 04 Feb 2012 at 6:22 pm

    200Hrs

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