Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
Sprint late last week unveiled a bit of news that one can suspect it did not want to get a lot of attention. This assumption is based on the fact the news was released on a Friday, which historically been a time when companies are looking to bury some business news so that either people miss the information as they have already begun their weekend, or if they did catch it are likely to forget that information come Monday morning. (It’s really quite clever.)
Anyways, Sprint CTO John Saw took to the company’s blog to callout the 3% of the carrier’s unlimited data customers that were ruining it for the other 97%. That callout basically stated that since those 3% of unlimited data customers take the word “unlimited” seriously, everyone with unlimited data could now see their data speeds throttled should they hit 23 gigabytes of usage and be connected to a cell site seeing some form of congestion.
From a punishment standpoint, Sprint’s move definitely has a third-grade feel to it, which I guess is how wireless carriers truly feel about their customers. Sure, they are old enough to sign contracts that may happen to state a customer will receive unlimited data in exchange for paying their bill each month, but since Johnny, Joey and Jake in the back of the room there won’t quit talking during class, the other 27 kids who are paying attention will join them in detention. That’ll teach ‘em!
Even better, Sprint’s decision to place throttling conditions on its unlimited customers came on the same day a $10 per month price increase targeting those exact customers was implemented. I guess it would be one thing if that $10 charge was only pushed onto Johnny, Joey and Jake, but alas the whole classroom is subject to that move as well.
More disturbing is that Sprint is touted as the most spectrum-rich domestic mobile operator and thus most likely able to handle increased consumer demand for services. I know some may argue the real commercial benefit of Sprint’s enormous 2.5 GHz spectrum holdings, but the carrier has not been shy in tooting its own spectrum-depth horn. I guess all this talk of a more powerful network has built in conditions.
One argument that can be made by Sprint against those customers storming the gates with pitchforks in hand is that this move does not technically go against its claim of offering unlimited data service. It’s just that at some point and in some conditions those unlimited data speeds will slow to an agonizing, painful crawl. This throttling is similar to what T-Mobile US has been doing for sometime, and everyone knows how consumer friendly T-Mobile US is so data throttling must be good, right?
Perhaps the best part of Sprint’s move was it garnered a response from Verizon Wireless that the carrier would not throttle its unlimited data customers at any threshold and instead would let those data hogs run wild. Of course, Verizon Wireless is set to charge an extra $20 per month for those select few customers that remain on unlimited data plans, which would seem to me to be more of a pitchfork raising event than speed throttling at a fairly high threshold and under only limited conditions.
To this point these moves have not garnered much attention from regulators, which I am sure is to the consternation of AT&T. However, you would think at some point there might be a move by some agency requiring wireless carriers to be more upfront in terms of what unlimited really means or at least use something larger than 4-point type to spell out those conditions.
But, until then I guess the meaning of the word unlimited will remain an ever-changing list of unlimited terms and conditions.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Worst of the Week column. Here is a quick, but satisfying extra:
–Government agencies went crazy this week throwing out fines against telecom operators for various infractions. Those include $30 million in fines against a half-dozed prepaid calling card companies for targeting minorities with claims of service they did not really provide (imagine that), and a $2.95 million levied against Sprint for not following new rules in how it informs customers they will be paying a bit extra each because of their low credit scores.
I have gone on record as stating that while I love fines when I don’t have to pay them, government fines against big companies are a waste of time. I continue to maintain that instead of the government requiring companies that break the rules to simply hand over a check, they should be forced to take those proceeds and advertise their misdeeds so those impacted know they were wronged.
My guess is that those customers impacted by Sprint and the calling card folks have no idea those companies took advantage of them and probably continue to fork over money to those companies without being able to make an informed decision that they would want to continue doing so considering what took place.
So, well done everyone. The process works!
I welcome your comments. Please send me an e-mail at dmeyer@rcrwireless.com.
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