| John Navas 2006-05-23, 5:48 pm |
| [POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]
In <LLHcg.18$sV6.11@fe07.lga> on Tue, 23 May 2006 12:37:46 -0500, "Thurman"
<thurman@bigplanet.com> wrote:
>http://www.techweb.com/wire/mobile/187202664
Cellular operators may advertise that they are offering "unlimited"
3G cellular data service, but they apparently don't mean it.
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Verizon Wireless has
been sending out service cancellation notices to high-speed EV-DO
cellular data customers who the operator claims over-use the service.
The Journal also reported that Sprint and Cingular are assessing
additional fees to heavy 3G users.
The Journal quoted a Verizon executive as saying that it is only
taking action against those who use "thousands of times the average"
amount of network capacity.
A spokesperson for Verizon Wireless said confirmed Friday afternoon
that the company is concerned about the issue but has yet to
terminate anybody.
"We've notified about 100 people or so, but we haven't terminated
anybody yet," the spokesperson said. She said that, typically,
abusers use a cellular router to spread the connection to multiple
people. However, she added that a number of applications, including
voice-over-IP, are expressly prohibited by the user agreement because
of how much bandwidth they use.
[MORE]
Why 3G Isn't Wi-Fi: Bandwidth Limits
<http://wifinetnews.com/archives/006562.html>
Verizon cuts off big 3G users: Last November, I wrote an article
about the terms of service for Cingular, Sprint Nextel, and Verizon’s
3G service. All three restrict what you can do, with Verizon having
the strictest policies requiring you to only surf, read email, and
use intranet applications. All other uses strictly prohibited.
The Wall Street Journal covers this issue today because the three
domestic 3G carriers--T-Mobile isn’t up to their speeds yet--are
starting to cancel 3G subscriptions (Verizon) or bill heavy users
(the other two). Verizon has apparently killed 100 user accounts for
people using "thousands of times the average" network usage. And,
holy net neutrality, Batman, Verizon will eventually detect protocol
types so it can ban specific kinds. Of course, this means that
virtual private network (VPN) users will be able to hide their
particular habits, but not overall usage. The Journal notes that
wireless data hasn’t yet been part of the neutrality discussions.
Fundamentally, we all know the dirty little secret is that not that
carriers have per-megabyte costs that they need to recover, but that
they have extremely limited spectrum for these services, and that
heavy users dampen the availability of 3G services for adjacent
users. Heavy users also tax the cell backhaul connections, which, I
have been told my multiple sources, is generally a relatively
low-speed digital service line, like a T-1 or equivalent. Carriers
have been eyeing fixed WiMax as a way to reduce their backhaul
bottleneck.
--
Best regards, SEE THE FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS AT
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/ Cingu...less_FA
Q>
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