ISPs should just tell us the bandwidth limit, and not claim “unlimited”

Following up from my investigation into which ISPs actually provide unlimited broadband, I am beginning to wonder why some ISPs advertise “unlimited” broadband when it clearly isn’t.

It confuses me – why can’t ISPs just advertise the amount of bandwidth that you are actually allowed to use rather than advertising a service that isn’t correct? Isn’t that some sort of fraud? I mean if I went out and bought five pints of beer and only got three, I’d be a little annoyed (honestly, I’m not like that – I don’t drink!, it’s just a scenario). It’s a similar sort of service.

Unlimited means something that has no limit. We all know that. So why are ISPs telling us a lie?

It just doesn’t make business sense to me. If you are an ISP, why do you want to tell customers they can download as much as they like when they really can’t? It just creates hassle – if users download more than you want them you have to send them a letter complaining that they are downloading too much, then another letter if they don’t have a reaction to your first letter, then threatening warnings about legal action, then court cases – it goes on and costs money!

Wouldn’t it just be simpler if ISPs just made it absolutely clear how much you can download per month without having to go through endless “fair use policies” that often don’t claim the usage allowances anyway? Aghh! This one is very frustrating.

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