I don't like the practice either, but allow me to play devil's advocate for a second, although this is probably not what either of us wants to hear: I really don't think this could qualify as false advertising. The "limit" being referred to is the total data per month, not the bandwidth. Everyone knows bandwidth is always limited; that goes without saying. Moreover, the fact that "limit" refers to the total amount of data is pretty clear: when you buy a limited plan, we all know that "limit" refers to the total amount of data you can use in a month, not the bandwidth you are given. So when they say "unlimited", that is correct—they're indeed fully removing the limit, which is the total quantity of data per month you can use. Hence I actually don't see it as being false advertising. Is it misleading though? I'd argue yes; it's not straightforward and it's clearly intended to give a different impression to someone who doesn't take the time to make the logical deductions.
> The "limit" being referred to is the total data per month
Sorry, that justification doesn't work because their throttling drastically limits the total data per month too. Verizon advertises "Unlimited 4G LTE" and also that their 4G LTE has typical speeds of 5-12 Mbps with 50 Mbps bursts. At the alleged throttled rate of 30 kbps, you couldn't even download 10 GB in a whole month of 24/7 usage, when you could normally expect to download that much in less than 5 hours if you weren't throttled, or as little as 30 minutes at the highest advertised speed.
That's not what "unlimited" means. By your logic the word "unlimited" would still be outright illegal no matter what the bandwidth was. And by your logic the police officer giving you a speeding ticket is garnishing your wages. That's not how normal people think, us pedantic computer scientists notwithstanding.
By your logic a data plan with a 35 GB monthly limit is unlimited, simply because the last 10 GB is spread over the whole month instead of 5 hours. I'm comfortable saying your interpretation is the less reasonable one.
No, you didn't understand my logic. By my logic it depends on the context of how that limitation came to exist: was it due to the speed of light, a consequence of some other limitation, or an explicitly placed limit. But you're welcome to feel differently.
We're not talking about hypothetical limits based on the speed of light. We're talking about actual limits based on usage. A plan with a per subscriber usage limit is not unlimited no matter what logic you apply.
I see what you're trying to say, let me say it more clearly for you. "Since Verizon only throttles during congestion it's not a per subscriber limit, it's just network management". First of all, I don't believe for a second that they only throttle during congestion and I also don't believe that the amount of congestion they experienced justifies throttling all the way to 30 kbps. They make the throttling that severe to force people to upgrade plans, not because it's necessary. But all of that is moot because they are still using per-subscriber usage to make their throttling decisions. When two people with the same plan on the same tower are throttled differently based on their usage, that's a de facto usage limit and calling it unlimited is false advertising.
I'm not saying they shouldn't be able to throttle people based on usage. They can do it all day long as long as they don't call it unlimited.
Do you think this interpretation would pass the "put 10 random people in a room and ask them" test?
I think the majority would expect to get the advertised speed unconditionally (in particular: not conditioned on using it a lot). And I suspect that most of the people expecting the opposite would be doing so because they heard about someone else being burned by the wording, as opposed to figuring that out for themselves tabula rasa.
A reasonable person is not a random (or more sensibly, the average) person though. I think a reasonable person would agree with my explanation. I'm not sure the average person would.
Edit: Apparently multiple people are misreading and assuming I'm trying to flatter myself here. "A reasonable person" is a pre-defined legal term that I have little choice but to use verbatim here. It's essentially a proper noun, but without capitalization. Specifically, I'm _not_ describing my own rationality when I say "a reasonable person" would agree with me. What I'm saying is that I think the legal "a reasonable person" would reason the same way I just reasoned. If you still don't get what I'm saying: had the legal term instead been "a stupid monkey", then my sentence would have read "a stupid monkey would agree with me".
I'm not sure you read the article. The whole point of a "reasonable person" is that it represents an "average person".
> this person is seen to represent a composite of a relevant community's judgement as to how a typical member of said community should behave in situations that might pose a threat of harm (through action or inaction) to the public
This is why we have a jury of our peers picked at random. The randomness is not random.
> Oh, get off your high horse. I'm not sure you read the article. The whole point of a "reasonable person" is that it represents an "average person".
Er, pardon? This isn't my high horse. This is literally your own article's text, which you yourself apparently didn't read:
> As a legal fiction, the "reasonable person" is not an average person or a typical person, leading to great difficulties in applying the concept in some criminal cases, especially in regards to the partial defence of provocation.
Sure. But it's necessary to follow all the guidelines, not just some of them. Also, you responded to incivility with incivility ("which you yourself apparently didn't read"). Please don't do that, even when provoked.
This reminds me of a HN comment (sorry, can't remember which) where it explained that one of the major differences between US and European law is technicality vs the spirit of the law. Where in the US you can get away with a lot because it's "technically" legal, it wouldn't fly in Europe just because the fine print says so. It's plain old false advertisement.
Can total data consumed be more than (31 x 24 x 60 x 60)s x 50 Mbps in any month of the year?
Let us stop pretending that the lawyers who approve corporate literature are innocent and just misinterpreted the meaning of the word "unlimited".
These malpractices need to stop. Precise language needs to be made legally necessary for such literature. This is no "Kublai Khan" where the writer is allowed liberties normally unavailable.
There's also an implied reasonableness test. That duffel bag I pulled out in the Olive Garden after purchasing the unlimited salads and breadsticks was disallowed. Not saying they are exactly comparable, but it's amazing how many of us can grasp that it's not truly unlimited but always think others are so easily fooled.
I dunno, looking at that page and scrolling down, there is absolutely no mention of any data cap on the left-most plan when looking at the three plans in the side-by-side comparison table.
The first plan has unlimited data with (after you hover to explicitly find out what that (i) is about) throttling in times of congestion. No mention of a data limit.
The other two both say the same thing, but that it only occurs after a data utilisation threshold has been met.
As the first plan says: "For people who want unlimited, and no worries" seems pretty clear to me that I should be getting unlimited, and not needing to worry about anything else.
"Go Unlimited" is subject to near-constant Network Management (corp-speak for "severe throttling").
"Beyond Unlimited" reserves this for after 22GB of data in a bill cycle; "Above Unlimited", after 75GB.
So, yes, unlimited data; but no, not unlimited access to anything resembling "high speed".
