New York to Verizon- unlimited does not mean 5 GB

We've written about and talked about the Verizon "unlimited" data plan (EV-DO) many times on jkOnTheRun and how the carrier in actuality imposes an undisclosed 5 GB limit that can result in termination once exceeded.  It didn't seem fair to us and the state of New York has agreed that this smacks of deceptive trade practices.  The wireless carrier has been ordered to cease and desist the claims that their BroadbandAccess data service is unlimited and has also ordered them to pay restitution estimated to total $1 million to the 13,000 customers whose "unlimited" accounts were terminated for exceeding 5 GB of downloads in a month.  The restitution is aimed at reimbursing those terminated customers for the useless modem equipment they were left with once terminated.  Verizon was also fined $150,000 for this practice.

Verizon has agreed to change their marketing material to stop indicating the service is unlimited.  There is good news for existing data service customers in that Verizon has also agreed to allow normal download practices such as video downloading to be excluded from the 5 GB limit.  So your unlimited plan will no longer be called an unlimited plan but the normal things you do with it will now not be deemed as unallowed by the TOS with Verizon.  It's about darn time.

(via Ars Tecnica)

Comments

[Jake]

There are plenty of ISPs here in the UK that are doing the same sort of thing. My ISP advertises an unlimited service but once you sign up for it they place all sorts of limits on the service. The most obvious is the speed of the connection in the evenings and the shaping of bitorrent traffic. None of them can be trusted as far as I'm concerned.

[Rodfather]

This was one of the reasons I went with Sprint broadband.
Didn't feel right signing up to a service that was obviously lying.