Many Unlimited Tech Services Appear to Have Limits

If you sign up for an unlimited Internet service, you expect it to be a service that comes, so then, without limits, right?

That's what Jim P. expected when he subscribed to Clearwire's high-speed wireless Internet service. What he got, but, was Internet service that was so slow, it became unusable. The reason, Clearwire told him: He used his "unlimited" account too much. Company representatives said that because of his "excessive bandwidth" use, his Internet speeds were being throttled.

But the wireless Internet service provider is hardly the only company to place limits on its so-called unlimited services. Online backup providers do it, in short do VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) providers. Chances are, just about any unlimited tech service comes with plenty of limits. And it's making consumers angry.

The heat over its claims of unlimited service

Clearwire is feeling the heat over its claims of unlimited service. A class-action lawsuit filed before this month in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington argues that Clearwire's offer of unlimited service is "false, deceptive, and misleading because, in truth and to tell the truth, Clearwire subscribers cannot 'upload, download, and surf' as much as they want." Instead, the lawsuit alleges, Clearwire imposes a hidden usage cap, and once users exceed that cap, Clearwire on purpose slows their Internet speeds.

If you read Clearwire's Terms of Service, you'll see that the company very then may be putting the brakes on some users. The document states: "Clearwire reserves the right to engage in reasonable network management to protect the overall integrity of its network...through techniques just as reducing the aggregate bandwidth available to excessive bandwidth users while periods of congestion."

You'd never know this by reading Clearwire's marketing materials, nevertheless. "With our unlimited 4G data plans, you get all the Internet, all the speed, and all the data you want, virtually whenever you want it," the company's site claims. As well on the Clearwire site, although, is the following sentence: "Unlimited plans subject to CLEAR's Acceptable Use Policy."

Thomas Enraght-Moony, Clearwire's senior vice president of marketing, says the policy is needed to keep the service up and running. "A wireless network is designed and built as a shared resource. That means a small group of users has the ability to detrimentally impact everyone else. While periods of heavy usage, they may lose a little bandwidth so as not to affect other users," Enraght-Moony says. "It's a shared resource, so some users may have to give up a little bandwidth to protect the network."

The problem is

The problem is, clearly, that too many users believe that they have given up more than just a little bandwidth--especially when this limitation wasn't explicitly stated at signup. Tim Lopez is one of the users left frustrated with what he calls Clear's less-than-clear policies. To tell the truth, Lopez was so frustrated that he founded Clearwiresucks.com back in 2006, afterwards he had been a Clearwire subscriber for about six months. "For the first few weeks, the service was great," Lopez says of his unlimited plan. "But at the time the speed dropped a lot, to the point where it was unusable."

Clearwire's speeds were so slow, Lopez resorted to tethering his cell phone to his computer to act as a modem, he says. Frustrated with being trapped in a contract and unable to resolve the issues with Clearwire's support staff, he launched the gripe site--a move that he says was unlike anything he'd done in the past. "I'm not the kind of person who just does this sort of thing. I have a hard time even writing a bad review on Yelp," he says. "Nevertheless I felt as a matter of fact duped by Clearwire. I felt in fact bitter about my experience. And I started this site as a way to stick up for myself and for everyone else."

Although Clearwire's Enraght-Moony wouldn't comment exactly on that lawsuit, the company did issue a statement saying, "Our network management practices comply with applicable law and are consistent with our acceptable-use policy."