Verizon sends service termination warning to a FiOS user that used ~7 TB of data for several consecu - Polidicks

[QUOTE=KillerJaguar;47628168]Am I the only one to think that Verizon isn't in the wrong?[/QUOTE] Legally or morally? Because sure, it's probably legal but: [quote]"It makes me curious why 500Mbps is even offered if just using a whopping four percent of that connection is prohibited."[/quote] Is really fucked; no reasonable individual would expect the "unofficial" cap to be such as low percentage of total potential usage.

I use 60gbs a month tops. This fucking guy must be doing some serious torrenting

[QUOTE=Code3Response;47628187]No, you're not. FP users are about to jump down your throat about it too. I think that 7Tb by a single user is excessive, if not malicious, use of the network. There comes a time where the business has to lookout for itself, and frankly I think Verizon hit that time here. No way they are making money with this guy's usage[/QUOTE] The simple fix would be to not wrongly advertise it as unlimited. When you advertise it as unlimited, you should expect to get to use it at full speed 100% of the time if you want to. That's what unlimited means.

If you read the article, it states that within [URL="http://www.verizon.com/about/terms/"]Verizon's Terms of Service[/URL] that you cannot host a server on a Residential connection, which is precisely what he is doing. That right is reserved for Business connections. Verizon is perfectly within their legal right to do so.

[QUOTE=TestECull;47628159]Doesn't matter. They sold him a half-gig connection with no bandwidth cap and he is entitled to use it to its fullest for any legal reason he so chooses. If they cannot maintain that level of service [i]they shouldn't fucking offer it in the first place[/i].[/QUOTE] What would you prefer they do? If ISPs couldn't kick people out for using too much bandwidth, we'd all be stuck with traffic caps of a few gigabytes, or <10mbit/s link speeds, if even that. Be more upfront about the fact they can't allow people to cause several terabytes of traffic every month, rather than "hiding" it in the AUP? Sure, but there needs to be legislation to require that (and heavy enforcement of said legislation) first.

[QUOTE=paul simon;47628222]The simple fix would be to not wrongly advertise it as unlimited. When you advertise it as unlimited, you should expect to get to use it at full speed 100% of the time if you want to. That's what unlimited means.[/QUOTE] unlimited fios (depending on neighbors' usage, peak times, routing, our infrastructure, and numerous other factors) how would you even define that "limit". "unlimited" always has a floating softcap depending on all those various factors.

[QUOTE]$315 a month[/QUOTE] the fuck

Nothing is unlimited, there's a cap somewhere down the line and this guy obviously has reached it You can't expect Verizon to put up with some guy burning 7tb/m like it's nothing, that's serious fucking bandwidth being used And as Lord has stated, anything that exceeds beyond consumer usage, your best to look into business internet deals

[QUOTE=LordCrypto;47628242]unlimited fios (depending on neighbors' usage, peak times, routing, our infrastructure, and numerous other factors) how would you even define that "limit". "unlimited" always has a floating softcap depending on all those various factors.[/QUOTE] A limit with stretchy rules is still a limit. Unlimited is not having any form of limit at all. (apart from the what the speed itself allows, of course)

[quote] $315 a month[/quote] Holy shit for that money just let him use that data.

[QUOTE=Code3Response;47628187]No, you're not. FP users are about to jump down your throat about it too. I think that 7Tb by a single user is excessive, if not malicious, use of the network. There comes a time where the business has to lookout for itself, and frankly I think Verizon hit that time here. No way they are making money with this guy's usage[/QUOTE] For me, it's more the ratio than the usage. 7Tb seems very excessive, or even unfathomable, on most connections; however, when using the connection at full speed for more than 1.2 days out of the month (if that) is considered unreasonable, that seems very underhanded to me because you're effectively paying for speed you won't be allowed to use.

ok you pay me 10 bucks a month and i give you unlimited rocks, this is my business now i've got a lot of rock subscribers, and most of them only take a few stones a month from me, maybe a large boulder every once in a while but one of you guys takes so many rocks home every day i'm starting to run out of rocks for everyone else, for months i've got a couple options, i can go to the rock store and get more and more rocks, but the thing is though you're already paying me that flat 10 and taking all my rocks, i'm not going to get any more money from my subscribers, i'm just trying to cover you taking all my rocks, or i could raise my prices to get more rocks, but i might lose rock subscribers that feel they're paying a good price for what they use and don't want to pay more, [B]or[/B] i can go to you and say "hey man, either you need to cut back on your rocks, or you need to give me more money to support your rock subscription"

[QUOTE=LordCrypto;47628264]ok you pay me 10 bucks a month and i give you unlimited rocks, this is my business now i've got a lot of rock subscribers, and most of them only take a few stones a month from me, maybe a large boulder every once in a while but one of you guys takes so many rocks home every day i'm starting to run out of rocks for everyone else, for months i've got a couple options, i can go to the rock store and get more and more rocks, but the thing is though you're already paying me that flat 10 and taking all my rocks, i'm not going to get any more money from my subscribers, i'm just trying to cover you taking all my rocks, or i could raise my prices to get more rocks, but i might lose rock subscribers that feel they're paying a good price for what they use and don't want to pay more, [B]or[/B] i can go to you and say "hey man, either you need to cut back on your rocks, or you need to give me more money to support your rock subscription"[/QUOTE] Or you know, you could try not to claim that each subscriber has access to unlimited rocks, when clearly, you only have a finite supply of rocks. Its just misleading claim from reality.

[QUOTE=DrTaxi;47628239]What would you prefer they do? If ISPs couldn't kick people out for using too much bandwidth, we'd all be stuck with traffic caps of a few gigabytes, or <10mbit/s link speeds, if even that. Be more upfront about the fact they can't allow people to cause several terabytes of traffic every month, rather than "hiding" it in the AUP? Sure, but there needs to be legislation to require that (and heavy enforcement of said legislation) first.[/QUOTE] I'm fine with them kicking people out for using too much bandwidth; I'm not fine with them claiming in big bold letters "Yes, You Can Use FiOS As Much As You Want ... Really!" then using some vague text in the terms of service disallowing "excessive amounts of e-mail or other Internet traffic" to get out of actually offering unlimited service, without even defining what excessive is I might add. More simply, they should clearly state what the cap is, because there clearly is a cap they will enforce, and they shouldn't claim to offer unlimited service if they can't (and they can't), because that is deceptive.

[QUOTE=paul simon;47628222]The simple fix would be to not wrongly advertise it as unlimited. When you advertise it as unlimited, you should expect to get to use it at full speed 100% of the time if you want to. That's what unlimited means.[/QUOTE] It's not even false advertising, because Verizon isn't putting a technical limit on his connection. For as long as his contract existed, they have provided him with an unlimited 500mbit/s connection. False advertising would be saying "we're not gonna use our right to terminate your contract, which exists in any service contract, if we don't like what you're doing".

All this guy needs to do is prove hes not doing what he agreed not to do on their plan and ill side with him

[QUOTE=Demache;47628285]Or you know, you could try not to claim that each subscriber has access to unlimited rocks, when clearly, you only have a finite supply of rocks. Its just misleading claim from reality.[/QUOTE] The reason it's called unlimited is because, again, ISP's don't expect you to go anywhere near 3TB or 4, or 5, or 6, or 7. They expect the average consumer might peak at 2.5TB and a lil over 3 but that's it Also it really depends on your line quality with service, like my ISP knows if I had unlimited I could probably burn 1TB but that's it Whereas if you've got really decent fibre optic, then they know you'll burn that easy but you probably won't peak anywhere close to say 4-5TB

[QUOTE=Code3Response;47628187]No, you're not. FP users are about to jump down your throat about it too. I think that 7Tb by a single user is excessive, if not malicious, use of the network. There comes a time where the business has to lookout for itself, and frankly I think Verizon hit that time here. No way they are making money with this guy's usage[/QUOTE] IIRC the cost of data is $.003/gb in a worst-case scenario for an ISP. That's $21 a month. He's paying far far more than that.

[QUOTE=Demache;47628285]Or you know, you could try not to claim that each subscriber has access to unlimited rocks, when clearly, you only have a finite supply of rocks. Its just misleading claim from reality.[/QUOTE] my rock collection was perfectly enough to provide unlimited rocks at 10 dollars a month for every user but once someone(and here's the important bit, [B]1 [/B]person, not everyone) tries paying that same 10 dollars and getting a whole lot more rocks, it isn't sustainable without changing something

[QUOTE=LordCrypto;47628311]my rock collection was perfectly enough to provide unlimited rocks at 10 dollars a month for every user but once someone(and here's the important bit, [B]1 [/B]person, not everyone) tries paying that same 10 dollars and getting a whole lot more rocks, it isn't sustainable without changing something[/QUOTE] 7tb is more than sustainable for one user from fucking Verizon Fios. It's still just an average utilization of ~20mbps and I'm pretty sure their fiber lines can handle that.

[QUOTE=DrTaxi;47628300]It's not even false advertising, because Verizon isn't putting a technical limit on his connection. For as long as his contract existed, they have provided him with an unlimited 500mbit/s connection. False advertising would be saying "we're not gonna use our right to terminate your contract, which exists in any service contract, if we don't like what you're doing".[/QUOTE] How is that not false advertising? Sounds like misleading small(no) print bullshit. They are asking him to limit his usage or he will be terminated. That wouldn't happen if it was actually unlimited.

I hate verizon but they are in the right

[QUOTE=DaMastez;47628298]I'm fine with them kicking people out for using too much bandwidth; I'm not fine with them claiming in big bold letters "Yes, You Can Use FiOS As Much As You Want ... Really!" then using some vague text in the terms of service disallowing "excessive amounts of e-mail or other Internet traffic" to get out of actually offering unlimited service, without even defining what excessive is I might add. More simply, they should clearly state what the cap is, because there clearly is a cap they will enforce, and they shouldn't claim to offer unlimited service if they can't (and they can't), because that is deceptive.[/QUOTE] No, there probably isn't a hard cap they will enforce. What's more likely is that Verizon noticed their lines (in the area) are getting clogged, and they checked whether there's a small amount of people (one of whom, or maybe the only, being the guy in the OP) they could reasonably bonk off under their AUP instead of spending money on improving their network.

[QUOTE=Map in a box;47628320]I hate verizon but they are in the right[/QUOTE] It would take him a little over a day to reach 7TB if he left his connection at fullspeed. Verizon is not in the right, they either need to stop claiming unlimited or stop offering such fast internet if they can't handle the bandwidth.

He is essentially using his connection to offer a service.. For once I'd side with the telco, as this seem like an unreasonable use of the connection.

[QUOTE=TestECull;47628159]Doesn't matter. They sold him a half-gig connection with no bandwidth cap and he is entitled to use it to its fullest for any legal reason he so chooses. If they cannot maintain that level of service [i]they shouldn't fucking offer it in the first place[/i].[/QUOTE] I don't think you or anybody else here would be happy with paying for a 50mpbs connection where the price was determined by assuming you will be at 50mbps every second of every day of every year. There are two variables here, instantaneous data speed and total data usage. Most people benefit from having a decent instantaneous speed when they spend an hour or two downloading a game or streaming a movie, but don't need that level of service continuously. The plans are priced with those typical users in mind, if you're using 7TB of data a month you're clearly running some sort of server, which is against the TOS of a home license and is why they have separate business service plans.

[QUOTE=Worstcase;47628237]If you read the article, it states that within [URL="http://www.verizon.com/about/terms/"]Verizon's Terms of Service[/URL] that you cannot host a server on a Residential connection, which is precisely what he is doing. That right is reserved for Business connections. Verizon is perfectly within their legal right to do so.[/QUOTE] I didn't see in the article that he was hosting a server, proper. It mentions a [I]different[/I] guy who got a warning for 50TB/month, but [I]that guy[/I] was running a rack of servers, in violation of his residential TOS. I also saw this: [QUOTE]The FiOS customer also said his prodigious Internet usage is "largely thanks to volunteer web crawling projects like Seti@Home," which shouldn't violate Verizon's rules.[/QUOTE] SETI@Home isn't a web crawler, to start with, and the amount of bandwidth it uses is absolutely minimal compared to the CPU time it takes up to do its analysis. Either the customer or the article writer is a fucking idiot. He's doing something at home and if he told the writer what it is, the writer declined to print it. Verizon's statement to Ars Technica on the matter: [QUOTE]A small number of FiOS Internet residential service customers are consuming volumes of data every month at levels that far exceed the monthly residential customer average for their service. To put this in context, FiOS Internet residential customers we have contacted would have to watch at least 6,660 movies per month or 222 movies per day to consume the amount of data they are using per month. We have asked these customers who are using their home Internet service at these volumes to (1) curb their usage; or (2) consider changing to a business-class service that is appropriate for their data usage. Verizon’s broadband networks provide a remarkably reliable and robust home Internet experience. The terms of service help ensure a consistent experience for every customer.[/QUOTE] Verizon are first-class shitlords in general, but this isn't the most unreasonable thing they've done. The real problem is ISPs are allowed to advertise "unlimited" without it actually being unlimited at all, along with all sorts of other shit, and are allowed to fill their terms of service and usage policies with vague, undefined terms that mean whatever they want it to mean. Bandwidth usage is "excessive" when Verizon decides it is and you're shit out of luck for finding any guidance on what is and isn't excessive and how to maintain your service. Even just having to publish the limits that the abuse team will tolerate before they start bugging you would go a long way to helping consumers deal with this kind of shit. And, of course, if they publish a limit, they can't advertise "unlimited" bandwidth anymore unless it actually is unlimited. But if you're pulling down multiple terabytes on a residential connection in the USA and you're not the only house in the neighbourhood on the connection, you shouldn't be too shocked if the ISP phones you up and tells you to calm down.

[QUOTE=catbarf;47628361]I don't think you or anybody else here would be happy with paying for a 50mpbs connection where the price was determined by assuming you will be at 50mbps every second of every day of every year. There are two variables here, instantaneous data speed and total data usage. Most people benefit from having a decent instantaneous speed when they spend an hour or two downloading a game or streaming a movie, but don't need that level of service continuously. The plans are priced with those typical users in mind, if you're using 7TB of data a month you're clearly running some sort of server, which is against the TOS of a home license and is why they have separate business service plans.[/QUOTE] It says nowhere about a server though. And 7tb a month can definitely be done without running one.

[QUOTE=Levelog;47628313]7tb is more than sustainable for one user from fucking Verizon Fios. It's still just an average utilization of ~20mbps and I'm pretty sure their fiber lines can handle that.[/QUOTE] Which lines? Their backbone, certainly. But the ones connecting the neighbourhood to the city-wide router (or whatever topology Verizon uses) are a lot more narrowband, and a lot more liable to clog up because of only a few heavy users, which would not be an issue if those users were geographically distributed more widely. [QUOTE=itisjuly;47628317]How is that not false advertising? Sounds like misleading small(no) print bullshit. They are asking him to limit his usage or he will be terminated. That wouldn't happen if it was actually unlimited.[/QUOTE] His connection's not getting limited. He gets an unlimited connection for as long as they're selling it to him. If they cancel his contract, they're no longer selling him anything, so it's not being wrongly advertised.

I can't think of anything he'd be doing that isn't torrenting or hosting his own server like the 50TB dude that would rack him up that high. Like it makes sense for them to at least look into it, it's totally valid for them to anticipate a break of the TOS, and in fact honestly if they didn't do shit about this and it turns out the dude's pirating a shitton of movies or some shit, every major media company that was violated would start headhunting Verizon super hard, and while I'm not too versed on modern corporate politics, I feel like Verizon thrives significantly on their partnerships with other corporations. It makes sense for them to step in as a business. Now, should they be clearer about what exactly constitutes too far? Absolutely, and I'm sure after this they will be clearer. It's all about precedent here, there was really no need for one in the past, so I really don't fault them for not being 100% upfront about it. When that 50TB dude got caught, that's when Verizon really said "uh yeah guys our TOS super prohibits specifically this kind of thing", and now people (at least the ones who care enough) know about that clause. Same thing'll probably happen here, they'll lay down a general 'yeah we dont mind you using your connections to their fullest but if you're found to be transferring 5TB+ a month consistently as a non-enterprise customer, we're gonna at least ask what the fuck's going on cause we could super get sued to oblivion if we dont'. [editline]29th April 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=elixwhitetail;47628383] I also saw this: SETI@Home isn't a web crawler, to start with, and the amount of bandwidth it uses is absolutely minimal compared to the CPU time it takes up to do its analysis. Either the customer or the article writer is a fucking idiot. He's doing something at home and if he told the writer what it is, the writer declined to print it. [/QUOTE] Yeah I was gonna say that maybe SETI@Home would've been a big player here, but if folding@Home is anything similar, I remember the whole deal being that it's crazy CPU intensive over anything else. Seems like the dude's definitely skirting around what he's up to.