Ian Morris
Ian Morris loves televisions so much he's been banned from wedding chapels in Las Vegas for trying to marry them. When he's not romancing technology, he can be found watching American TV. Ian likes roast potatoes, but he doesn't like digital rights management.
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Thursday 20 September 2007, 12:27pm
Does anyone actually know what unlimited means?
Unlimited is defined by some dictionaries using the following words: not limited; unrestricted; boundless; infinite. What these dictionary writers are getting at is that something unlimited cannot have any limits. The clue is in the word. So why are we surrounded by companies who don't seem capable of walking to their nearest dictionary and looking up a word?
To pluck one example out of the clear blue sky (ahem), the iPhone launched this week in the UK. One of the selling points is the 'unlimited' data plan you get with it -- but it isn't unlimited at all. What your £35 a month buys you is a monthly limit of 200MB. Okay, you could possibly argue 200MB is a generous limit, but unlimited doesn't mean generous. I'd say that 200MB, being a limit, is the opposite of unlimited.
The same fundamental ignorance about what unlimited means exists with some Internet service provides too. There are a number of them who call their service unlimited, then proceed to limit the service using a 'fair usage policy', or FUP. A FUP means, while you can technically download whatever you want, after you hit an often unspecified limit, your ISP will make it harder for you to carry on, either by slowing your connection down, or just cutting you off totally.
I'd like to rant about this more, but my unlimited* column inches are rapidly running out, so I'll end by saying that if you want to use the word unlimited, at least look it up first.
*Fair usage policy applies, first 300 words are free, every word after that costs £1 in donations to the office cake and beer fund. Terms and conditions apply, see press for details, does not affect your statutory rights.
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Comments on this post
I'm wit a fairly unknown Internet provider, offering broadband 'unlimited 2Mb up and down'. The only reason I reside with this company, is because living n the village I do live in there's no other way to get broadband, so it's this or dial-up. They call it '2mb up and down', they call is 'unlimited', but its not. It ranges from 1-2mb down, and 300-800 up. And once I started to download big files quite frequently I got cut off. No warning, just cut off. So I rang them up and they THEN explained it was unfair on the other customers, with is pathetic. Its like false advertising, they shouldn't say they offer one thing, when in fact it really isn't. But I can't really fight it, them or dial up.. no option but them.
Posted by Charlie on Sat 27 October, 2007 11:00 PM
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Thats rediculous, I downloaded up to 12GB in one day on my laptop, and one of the main reasons I want an iPhone is so that I can use it as a wireless access point for my laptop while I'm away from home.
Posted by Anonymous on Wed 21 May, 2008 6:23 PM
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Go on 3, i have a phone with them but my £5 internet contract NEVER seems to work so i get unlimited internet. Even the three store said not to say anything cos chances are something went wrong and no one will stop it or even know if i downloaded 50gig per month.
Posted by myles on Sun 15 March, 2009 10:08 PM
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