UPDATE: Verizon Cutting OFF Unlimited Data Users Using More Than 100GB Per Month

[tech_head]

No they don't. You don't appear to understand the purpose of termination clauses nor how they are written. They are not going to attempt to validate or defend their decision to terminate you, but simply their contractual right to do so.

It's a common type of clause, and one that's fairly well established in contract law.

I live in Ca. and my service is in Ca.
I fully understand those clauses. I fully understand contract law in Ca.
Unfortunately for them in Ca., those clauses that allow them to terminate service also requires them to prove you are in breach of contract and violated the TOS. So in Ca., just consuming data is not enough for them to terminate service.

Contract law varies from state to state and in Ca. breaking a contract requires the showing a breach. Ca. has some of the strongest consumer protection laws in the country.

 

[kodiak799]

Unfortunately for them in Ca., those clauses that allow them to terminate service also requires them to prove you are in breach of contract and violated the TOS. So in Ca., just consuming data is not enough for them to terminate service.

But it's not breach or violation as you define it, it's as defined in the contract...and using "too much data" is something at least vaguely defined in the contract. And damages for breach are usually specified in such contracts, and in this case it was generally the ETF that you kept if VZW breached.

Second, we are actually talking month-to-month contracts. So there isn't even a contract for VZW to breach if they choose not to renew your contract.

 

[tech_head]

We will agree that people can exceed this new line in the sand of 100GB without using the phone in a typical fashion. I mentioned two examples of a long haul trucker and a home-bound individual without cable. But like I've said, it's usually the few that ruin it for the many. There's no way to determine from the switches if someone is using the phone for tethering or not if they don't subscribe to a tethering plan (mobile hotspot). They just see the phone's IP address, MAC address, location via tower IDs, IMEI, and the data streaming out or in. So there's no way to differentiate those who abuse it from those using it in a manner compliant with the TOS.

So they draw a line in the sand and some innocent suffer.

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Actually they can.
They can do deep packet inspection like AT&T did.
Based on a TCP/IP packet TTL (Time To Live) you can guess if a packet originates on a device or on a device tethered.

The stack on Android and Apple devices will have a specific TTL for internet traffic.
The TTL is the maximum number of hops a packet can take. It starts at a specific value and is decremented after each hop. So by inspecting the TTL of a packet you can roughly guess if that packet originated on the device or not.

That is a much better indicator of a TOS violation or not.
I'm a chip design engineer by profession.
I've designed chips in everything from cell phones (GSM) to chips in super computers.
In the past I designed networking chips.
Routers and firewalls that do QOS and deep packet inspection give them all they need.

 

[FoxKat]

Actually they can.
They can do deep packet inspection like AT&T did.
Based on a TCP/IP packet TTL (Time To Live) you can guess if a packet originates on a device or on a device tethered.

The stack on Android and Apple devices will have a specific TTL for internet traffic.
The TTL is the maximum number of hops a packet can take. It starts at a specific value and is decremented after each hop. So by inspecting the TTL of a packet you can roughly guess if that packet originated on the device or not.

That is a much better indicator of a TOS violation or not.
I'm a chip design engineer by profession.
I've designed chips in everything from cell phones (GSM) to chips in super computers.
In the past I designed networking chips.
Routers and firewalls that do QOS and deep packet inspection give them all they need.

OK, so if that's true, and I have every reason to believe that time and hops can be put up as evidence to implicate a TOS violation, how do they prove it? It's their word and those metrics against the word of the customer. Is this information sufficient to bring the case in front of the FCC? I'll bet the FCC would side with the consumer and Verizon would lose that argument, so they would rather not go down that road.

Secondly, if they feel 100GB is the line in the sand they wish to enforce, whether it's due to tethering or not, and proper exit clauses are in place on the TOS, don't they have the right and protection of the law to do so?

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

 

[tech_head]

But it's not breach or violation as you define it, it's as defined in the contract...and using "too much data" is something at least vaguely defined in the contract. And damages for breach are usually specified in such contracts, and in this case it was generally the ETF that you kept if VZW breached.

Second, we are actually talking month-to-month contracts. So there isn't even a contract for VZW to breach if they choose not to renew your contract.

No we are not strictly talking about mont-to-month. There are plenty of people for various reason that have UDP lines under contract. I have four under contract until Nov. 2017.

If you are unlimited and you consume the data on your phone and you DO NOT tether; there is no such thing as consuming too much data. Can we all at least agree there are some usage cases that strictly conform to the TOS and usage models that can and will exceed 100GB?

If we can't all agree that the above statement is true, then there is no point to this conversation.
There are people that have gotten the letters and they DO NOT tether.

Someone that does not have a TV and uses their phone and only their phone for streaming music, NetFlix, Amazon Video and YouTube can exceed those limits. This would not be a violation of the TOS.

 

[FoxKat]

If you are unlimited and you consume the data on your phone and you DO NOT tether; there is no such thing as consuming too much data. Can we all at least agree there are some usage cases that strictly conform to the TOS and usage models that can and will exceed 100GB?

There is no disputing this, and I strongly agree. I've said it numerous times.

Violating the TOS however, by using the phone for tethering without a Hotspot plan, using the phone to broadcast spam, run a website, etc., are all obvious violations of the TOS and we all agree that those users who do these things are subject to the termination of the plan. Using it to watch movies, even if you exceed 100GB/month is IMHO not really a violation of the TOS.

The problem is, when members abuse the system as they have for so long by tethering and by essentially using their phones as their home ISP, they have created a problem where there shouldn't have been one.

I'll be the first to admit that I've used my phone to tether at extremely infrequent times, may be an hour or two on one or another day, both by calling Verizon and paying the per diem fee of $1 for a day or two at a time, and also by hacking the Entitlement check. In both cases, I never came close to 100GB in any month I've ever had service - even when I add up all data used on three phones combined, so I would say that I've flown well under the radar and I'll bet Verizon doesn't really care about the one-off's like me. It's those who are essentially using it every month at "well in excess of 100GB/month" on each line, that are really what Verizon is most upset about and so they're making it an issue now.

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out in any event.

 

[droidprincess]

The way I see it is those on an a UDP should feel lucky that Verizon let them keep it. I mean you are no longer in a contract with them for it and they no longer offer it. So they could have made you go to a tiered plan.

But we're nice and let ya keep it...I was on Verizon many years ago and heard they had plans of getting rid of the UDP and I dropped them and went to att also got tired of paying full price for my phoned when I wanted to upgrade...lol.

Those individuals must be using there phone as there main home Internet to use 100gb+ used data....I don't know how you can use that much just by using your phone....and if that is the case you are abusing there UDP do to the fact it was ment for use on phone only not as a home internet.

Sent From My Galaxy S6 Edge+

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[kodiak799]

Can we all at least agree there are some usage cases that strictly conform to the TOS and usage models that can and will exceed 100GB?

No, we can't agree because the TOS explicitly contains language along the lines of "excessive" or "abusive". You're only real leg to stand on here is if 100GB+ was a foreseeable and reasonable expectation...and you'll most likely lose that one. They've already put the case out there - the average user uses less than 5GB, and their largest currently available plan is 100GB for family shares.

I can sell you unlimited water. But if you choose to just leave the water running, I'm going to give myself an out to terminate the agreement. And there may be other instances - I'm not going to back myself into a corner specifically outlining the scenarios I can terminate your service. Let's be bluntly honest - these people ARE taking advantage or abusing the service, and that is SPECIFICALLY why companies put such clauses into TOS agreement. That whole throttling deal was specifically because VZW agreed to certain terms when they purchased the spectrum.

Further, what is the remedy of a breach? How are you harmed? So if the remedy is financial - here's a $1 for your losses. Or do they force completion of the contract? Either way, you're done at the end of your contract.

 

[kodiak799]

Using it to watch movies, even if you exceed 100GB/month is IMHO not really a violation of the TOS.

If you're watching 100 hours of hi-def video on your phone every month, not only is that wasteful it's just pathetic. It's literally like drinking from a faucet.

On a perfectly practical mobile setting for a tiny phone, we're then talking 200-300 hours of Netflix a month to hit 100GB. That's extraordinary and sad.

Nobody is going to sue them, because there are very few, if any, people using 100GB+ without tethering multiple users and/or downloading torrents.

Sure, you can theoretically - given an extraordinary amount of effort - use 100GB without tethering or illegal filesharing. Maybe you sync 1000 hi-def 20MP photos a day to dropbox, every day. Anything is possible, theoretically.

 

[FoxKat]

No, we can't agree because the TOS explicitly contains language along the lines of "excessive" or "abusive". You're only real leg to stand on here is if 100GB+ was a foreseeable and reasonable expectation...and you'll most likely lose that one. They've already put the case out there - the average user uses less than 5GB, and their largest currently available plan is 100GB for family shares.

I can sell you unlimited water. But if you choose to just leave the water running, I'm going to give myself an out to terminate the agreement. And there may be other instances - I'm not going to back myself into a corner specifically outlining the scenarios I can terminate your service. Let's be bluntly honest - these people ARE taking advantage or abusing the service, and that is SPECIFICALLY why companies put such clauses into TOS agreement. That whole throttling deal was specifically because VZW agreed to certain terms when they purchased the spectrum.

Further, what is the remedy of a breach? How are you harmed? So if the remedy is financial - here's a $1 for your losses. Or do they force completion of the contract? Either way, you're done at the end of your contract.

And I agree with all of this, however there is one thing I will say here that perhaps will bridge the gap between the two of you. It is true that the largest plan for family share is 100GB, but I think that is really unrealistically low today, given HD video, auto backups and so many other data transmission intensive processes that we may have used infrequently in the past but today are mainstream. And the biggest users now are the kids. Parents can only regulate their use so much, but we all know how resourceful the younger people will be if they want something bad enough.

So in order to protect the parents, they've placed these two protections on the plans, Safety Mode and Carryover Data. I think that they are both necessary but also they don't go far enough. 100GB in a family of 4, two parents and two teens is suicide. The parents will use 5-10GB, the kids will each use 50GB. Give them an inch, they'll take a mile. I think that certain types of use need to be TRULY UNLIMITED. Things such as audio and video streaming should be unlimited. Video calling (if not already free), should not impact data consumption. Voice over IP should be free. And automatic backup of video and audio and photos should be free.

If they did these things, then these plans would be perfect, and most families would get by with even as little as 25GB shared in today's era. They're pushing us to use data more, and so the cellular service providers need to move just a little more towards proper alignment with typical users.

 

[kodiak799]

If they did these things, then these plans would be perfect, and most families would get by with even as little as 25GB shared in today's era. They're pushing us to use data more, and so the cellular service providers need to move just a little more towards proper alignment with typical users.

I don't disagree that 100GB for a family of 4 might be a bit light (though it's very manageable).

I've tethered like crazy when I've traveled - basically 16 days a month. I've hit numbers as high as 80GB - but half of that was dropbox cloud syncing large files I was working on and saving many times a day. Plus I download like 500MB a day in my news feeders.

I really don't see how you can go over 50GB without tethering unless you're trying really, really hard. If you watch THAT MUCH video on your phone in an era of 65"+ tv's in 4k then technology weeps for you.

edit: of course, on those plans you can tether. So I can see it.

 

[FoxKat]

If you're watching 100 hours of hi-def video on your phone every month, not only is that wasteful it's just pathetic. It's literally like drinking from a faucet.

On a perfectly practical mobile setting for a tiny phone, we're then talking 200-300 hours of Netflix a month to hit 100GB. That's extraordinary and sad.

Look, I know teens and young adults who binge on Netflix and YouTube, and could easily push a family plan over 100GB when combined with other family members' usages. My son spends almost every free hour on YouTube watching Minecraft instructional demo videos and satire. If I didn't have WIFI, he'd be using data out the wazoo.

And I used the example of a long haul trucker who essentially lives in his or her 18-wheeler for as many as 20+ days a month. Those people don't have WIFI and don't have Cable TV, so the cellular phone is their only lifeline and only source of entertainment. They could easily use 100GB alone in one month and I really don't think that they should be penalized. Unfortunately they are going to be tossed into the heap with those who ARE abusing IMHO, by tethering and other unapproved means.

Look, we all have our own opinions of what violates the TOS or what we believe is too much data use, however the carriers have to be more understanding and compassionate since if they don't society will definitely increase its consumption of data faster than the carriers upgrade their plans to meet them, and in the process subscribers will pay penalties and the carriers will anger their customers along the way to the eventual solution - succumb to the demand.

 

[kodiak799]

Audio really isn't that much. Spotify hi-def in 320kbps would burn maybe 120MB an hour.

The only way to really burn large amounts of data is video and filesharing (be it torrents, or cloud syncing files/photos). And filesharing is something that really can be easily saved until connected to wifi.

 

[kodiak799]

And I used the example of a long haul trucker who essentially lives in his or her 18-wheeler for as many as 20+ days a month. Those people don't have WIFI and don't have Cable TV, so the cellular phone is their only lifeline and only source of entertainment. They could easily use 100GB alone in one month and I really don't think that they should be penalized.

Look at the numbers....Sure, they CAN do that with the highest quality video, but in fact you can't see that on a tiny cellphone. On a practical setting, 100GB is 300+ hours of video a month. And longhaul truckers might have half that time available on the road if they were watching video on their cellphone 8 hours a day.

Maybe they can "easily" use 100GB...they can just as easily use a lot less.

 

[FoxKat]

I really don't see how you can go over 50GB without tethering unless you're trying really, really hard. If you watch THAT MUCH video on your phone in an era of 65"+ tv's in 4k then technology weeps for you.

But you're forgetting a new demographic in the Millennials and then the next one right behind. Many don't even watch TV. For many, their cell phone screen is their "big screen" since a 5.5" screen held at 12-14" away or closer from the eyes "looks" like a 40" or larger big screen TV, and the phones have a MUCH higher pixel density so they look even sharper.

The young also spend much more of their time outside the home than their preceding generations, they take MUCH more video and photos, share it on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter, etc., and so the phone becomes their single most important social connection.