4 ms·

77TB is quite a bit, but part of being able to charge little old ladies $80/month who only do 20MB of email is running into the occasional fellow who does the o

77TB is quite a bit, but part of being able to charge little old ladies $80/month who only do 20MB of email is running into the occasional fellow who does the opposite. Unlimited. Hu keep hu-sing tha word. I do-na think it mean wha you think it mean. Edit: I'm not sure why this is getting down-voted repeatedly but let me just add: If a company is going to use the term "unlimited" it has to be prepared for 2 eventualities. 1) Some one pays the monthly fee and transfers 0 bytes. big win for company. 2) Someone pays the monthly fee and transfers at full speed 100% of the time. Potential big lose for company. If a company is not prepared for both of these outcomes, don't use that word. It sucks to grab the first and then try to outlaw the second with TOS weasel-ry.

TylerE 13y ago
Except the whole "Don't run servers on a residential connection" part of the service agreement, which he clearly in violation of. That's the real story here.
- noonespecial 13y ago
  Ahh yes, but he had to tell them he was running servers. They just saw the overage and called to ask. What is a "any type of server" anyway? A p2p client listening for connections? A personal VPN end-point? Its a grey area ripe for selective TOS enforcement. Clearly this guy was over the top but its all part of "unlimited as long as you don't use it too much". Why should they care what runs on a connection? Just sell the damn bandwidth already.
  - TylerE 13y ago
    Not that hard at all. A simple metric might be that if outbound > 0.20 * inbound, there's probably something going on, and that if outbound > inbound, huge red alerts should go off.
    - noonespecial 13y ago
      I hope not. I use my FIOS for offsite backup to colo for the projects I work on. I'd guess I have about time and a half more outbound than in.
      - TylerE 13y ago
        Unless your project is huge, I don't see that tripping anything off. If your project, is, say, 1GB, then it'd only take about 45 minutes of HQ Netflix streaming to balance out a complete upload.
        noonespecial 13y ago
        Its real estate stuff, audio, video, photos. I'd guess in the neighborhood of 3-5 gig/day. Sometimes lots more. I'd hate for a "30 gig day" to set off a bunch of alarms that had me explaining myself to some corporate enforcer all the time.
  - bluedino 13y ago
    Couldn't they bust him for P2P or sharing illegal content? He said friends and family stream media from him, and I doubt he has a whole rack of hard drives to store legitimately owned data.
    - redblacktree 13y ago
      This is probably why he chose to remain anonymous.
- thedufer 13y ago
  But what's a "server"? That sounds like a clause that includes everyone, just so they can drop absolutely anyone they want with no repercussions.
ghshephard 13y ago
Back in 2003-2005, when I was managing telecom for a smart grid company, I was negotiating with Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T for wireless data plans. A conversation with them, Verizon in particular, was like a comedy sketch. Me: So, for $90/month, how much data do I get? Rep: It's Unlimited. Me: Great - so how much is "Unlimited?" Rep: We have no Limit. Me: So, can you tell me how that is? Rep: Seriously, it's "Unlimited!" Me: So, you're telling me there no cap, right? Rep: Exactly! Me: Great - can I purchase 1000 circuits, I'll be downloading approximately 32 gigabytes/circuit/month. Rep: Woah - hold on there - that's over the limit. Me: Yes, of course - so, for $90/month, how much data do I get?
- Semaphor 13y ago
  Now I'm somewhat interest, did you get an answer?
  - ghshephard 13y ago
    The best I could ever get them to commit to was, "Unlimited within reasonable amounts." I.E. They would let me know if I was pulling down too much traffic, but wouldn't let me know what "too much" was.
- raverbashing 13y ago
  "Oh, it is unlimited? Put that on the contract then."
- catshirt 13y ago
  AT&T wouldn't allow me to enable tethering from my iphone because i had an "unlimited" data plan. fancy that. i switched to T-Mobile after that conversation. although my unlimited plan is still "unlimited", it's at least a higher cap, with tethering, $30/mo less.
Shinkei 13y ago
The point is that I don't want to think about the practical limit of my bandwidth and considering the guy is clearly an outlier, I don't blame Verizon for pitching it as 'unlimited' when for nearly all intents and purposes... it IS unlimited. I give credit to Verizon for being fair in this case. Especially since the guy basically admitted he is pirating like crazy and letting his friends/family serve it up. This guy gives responsible consumers a bad name.
- noonespecial 13y ago
  This guy gives responsible consumers a bad name. Sure he does. He makes me want to say "cut it out, you're going to ruin 'unlimited' for everyone"... and that sets off an alarm in my head right there. Just like those deplorable Westboro Baptist folks yelling "God hates fags" test our commitment to what we mean by "free speech", obnoxious outliers like this test the limits of "unlimited". "X Mbit/s, Unlimited" has a very specific meaning. It means being able transfer at X-MBit/s continuously, 100% of the time. Anything else is limited. Which is fine, and may indeed be "so much I never have to worry about going over". Just don't use the U word.
gwright 13y ago
For better or worse, service providers have settled on using "unlimited(asterisk)" as a shorthand for 'We are selling you a shared resource that we provision based on the probabilities associated with a statistical-multiplexing framework modeled upon observations of actual customer usage. 95% of our customers will not be limited in any way. The other 5% of our customers will have to negotiate a separate solution to meet their needs.' As long as the actual limits of an 'unlimited(asterisk)' service are reasonably easy to discern prior to purchase and are only going to affect 0-5% of the users, I don't have a problem with the 'unlimited(asterisk)' shorthand. P.S. How do you get a literal asterisk to appear in a HN comment?

TylerE 13y ago

Except the whole "Don't run servers on a residential connection" part of the service agreement, which he clearly in violation of. That's the real story here.

noonespecial 13y ago
Ahh yes, but he had to tell them he was running servers. They just saw the overage and called to ask. What is a "any type of server" anyway? A p2p client listening for connections? A personal VPN end-point? Its a grey area ripe for selective TOS enforcement. Clearly this guy was over the top but its all part of "unlimited as long as you don't use it too much". Why should they care what runs on a connection? Just sell the damn bandwidth already.
- TylerE 13y ago
  Not that hard at all. A simple metric might be that if outbound > 0.20 * inbound, there's probably something going on, and that if outbound > inbound, huge red alerts should go off.
  - noonespecial 13y ago
    I hope not. I use my FIOS for offsite backup to colo for the projects I work on. I'd guess I have about time and a half more outbound than in.
    - TylerE 13y ago
      Unless your project is huge, I don't see that tripping anything off. If your project, is, say, 1GB, then it'd only take about 45 minutes of HQ Netflix streaming to balance out a complete upload.
      - noonespecial 13y ago
        Its real estate stuff, audio, video, photos. I'd guess in the neighborhood of 3-5 gig/day. Sometimes lots more. I'd hate for a "30 gig day" to set off a bunch of alarms that had me explaining myself to some corporate enforcer all the time.
- bluedino 13y ago
  Couldn't they bust him for P2P or sharing illegal content? He said friends and family stream media from him, and I doubt he has a whole rack of hard drives to store legitimately owned data.
  - redblacktree 13y ago
    This is probably why he chose to remain anonymous.
thedufer 13y ago
But what's a "server"? That sounds like a clause that includes everyone, just so they can drop absolutely anyone they want with no repercussions.

ghshephard 13y ago

Back in 2003-2005, when I was managing telecom for a smart grid company, I was negotiating with Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T for wireless data plans. A conversation with them, Verizon in particular, was like a comedy sketch. Me: So, for $90/month, how much data do I get? Rep: It's Unlimited. Me: Great - so how much is "Unlimited?" Rep: We have no Limit. Me: So, can you tell me how that is? Rep: Seriously, it's "Unlimited!" Me: So, you're telling me there no cap, right? Rep: Exactly! Me: Great - can I purchase 1000 circuits, I'll be downloading approximately 32 gigabytes/circuit/month. Rep: Woah - hold on there - that's over the limit. Me: Yes, of course - so, for $90/month, how much data do I get?

Semaphor 13y ago
Now I'm somewhat interest, did you get an answer?
- ghshephard 13y ago
  The best I could ever get them to commit to was, "Unlimited within reasonable amounts." I.E. They would let me know if I was pulling down too much traffic, but wouldn't let me know what "too much" was.
raverbashing 13y ago
"Oh, it is unlimited? Put that on the contract then."
catshirt 13y ago
AT&T wouldn't allow me to enable tethering from my iphone because i had an "unlimited" data plan. fancy that. i switched to T-Mobile after that conversation. although my unlimited plan is still "unlimited", it's at least a higher cap, with tethering, $30/mo less.

Shinkei 13y ago

The point is that I don't want to think about the practical limit of my bandwidth and considering the guy is clearly an outlier, I don't blame Verizon for pitching it as 'unlimited' when for nearly all intents and purposes... it IS unlimited. I give credit to Verizon for being fair in this case. Especially since the guy basically admitted he is pirating like crazy and letting his friends/family serve it up. This guy gives responsible consumers a bad name.

noonespecial 13y ago
This guy gives responsible consumers a bad name. Sure he does. He makes me want to say "cut it out, you're going to ruin 'unlimited' for everyone"... and that sets off an alarm in my head right there. Just like those deplorable Westboro Baptist folks yelling "God hates fags" test our commitment to what we mean by "free speech", obnoxious outliers like this test the limits of "unlimited". "X Mbit/s, Unlimited" has a very specific meaning. It means being able transfer at X-MBit/s continuously, 100% of the time. Anything else is limited. Which is fine, and may indeed be "so much I never have to worry about going over". Just don't use the U word.

gwright 13y ago

For better or worse, service providers have settled on using "unlimited(asterisk)" as a shorthand for 'We are selling you a shared resource that we provision based on the probabilities associated with a statistical-multiplexing framework modeled upon observations of actual customer usage. 95% of our customers will not be limited in any way. The other 5% of our customers will have to negotiate a separate solution to meet their needs.' As long as the actual limits of an 'unlimited(asterisk)' service are reasonably easy to discern prior to purchase and are only going to affect 0-5% of the users, I don't have a problem with the 'unlimited(asterisk)' shorthand. P.S. How do you get a literal asterisk to appear in a HN comment?