Lets say you have just bought a brand new house and you need to hook up the water. You go to the water company and they offer you choices of different water plans. Some let you use as little as 2 gallons of water and go up to 10 gallons a month. You opt for the 10 gallon plan and pay $100 a month for it. On day one you open the faucet and draw out all 10 gallons. You divided it up into bathing, cooking, cleaning, and drinking. The next month you do the same and continue doing the same thing for the first 6 months. Then one day you open the faucet to get your 10 gallons and the water barely trickles out. You call the water company and they tell you that you are in the top 5% of water users and in an effort to keep the water pipes from getting clogged they are 'water optimizing' you. They then ask if you have been drinking water that you got out of the tap. Of course you have, and they point out that the contract you signed says you cannot drink the water, because they sell a separate $30 water drinking plan. Since you signed a 2yr contract you have no choice but to purchase the drinking add on to your policy. So now you are paying $130 a month for the same 10 gallons only now you are now contractually allowed to drink some.
If this happened to you in real life, you would probably go CrAzY. After all its quite absurd. Its all the same water, who cares if you drink it or clean with it. How can they dictate how you use the water, once you get it out of the tap.
The bad part about this story is that its ALL TRUE!!! Well not in the water sense. But in the cell phone sense. I know this because its happening to me. Verizon, my phone carrier, has lumped me in the top 5% of data users (data abusers are what they actually called me) and slowed down my data connection.
They told me that tethering my phone to my computer is a violation of my agreement. Not because I am using more water, I mean data, but because tethering is a service they charge for. But my phone tethers automatically. Its a function of the phone not anything special Verizon has or needs to do. My phone itself does it when I connect it to my laptop. Tethering doesn't allow me to use more data, it just displays the data on my laptop, as opposed to the phones small screen. But Verizon wants me to pay $30 more for this. I don't know why I need to give them an extra $30, they aren't giving me anything extra. I bought the phone, cables, laptop and data plan. Why do I still need to pay an extra $30 to Verizon for the privlage of hooking the components I bought together?
If I buy a new TV, and new cables and connect them to my cable box, I don't pay anything extra to the cable company do I? No! (NOTE**The cable companies did try to do this once. Make you pay per tv connection. that idea went the way of the DoDo)
Now here is where the story gets absolutely insane. When I got my phone, I was delighted to see that it had a built in app (slacker app)to stream music from the internet, and a built in YouTube app to watch videos on. These apps came built into the phone and cannot be deleted. A phone bought from a Verizon representative. A Phone with a Verizon logo on the face of it. Now this is the really insane part. STREAMING MUSIC AND VIDEO VIOLATES MY TERMS OF USE AGREEMENT!
What?? Really???? YES REALLY! Its all their in black and white and very small print. My phone came with 2 Verizon approved apps that I can never legally use!
What a crock of sh!t that is!
Thankfully though, its not just in my agreement. Its in millions of Verizon users agreements. And if I had to venture a guess, its probably in AT&T user agreements as well. And if we all stand up together and lodge complaints with each company and the FCC something would be done about it. The "Big 2" as they are known seem to play a follow the leader game. AT&T is usually the trendsetter and Verizon follows suit. Until recently, you still had 2 other smaller choices for phone service who allowed tethering and truly unlimited data usage. Those were T-Mobile and Sprint. Well AT&T bought T-Mobile. Effectively ending that alternative. Which leaves Sprint to stand alone against the Big 2. And they are in trouble. I think you can see where this is going. Verizon will play follow the leader once again and will probably buy out Sprint in less than 2 years. Mark my words.
Now if all of this seems familiar, its because Verizon and AT&T are taking a page from China's phone companies. The 2 largest carriers over there did the exact same thing. Creating and oligopiliy and colluding with each other to offer minimum services and maximum prices. luckily the Communist Chinese Government is stepping in to correct the situation. I wonder if ours will. Probably not. As the demand for more data increases, and the demand for profits increase, profits will always win. Cell companies have shipped so many jobs overseas to save money and refuse to make tangible upgrades to their networks.They keep the extras and line the pockets of the FCC and Govnt officials so that they don't have to be accountable for any of it. And now we are well on our way to doing the same thing that happened in China.
On a side note, I am sure many of you have seen the ads for Verizons 4GLTE service and the cable companies screaming fast broadband internet connections. Well as fast as you think they are, did you know we are still far behind other countries? In fact we are #18! on the list of the top 20 fastest internet connections. #18! Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, China, all way ahead of us. Our fastest measured internet speeds were measured in Utah at 7.2Mbps. Compare that to Koreas 80Mbps and some parts of china at 100Mbps. (And they are paying less for it!) and you can see what a joke our 3G/4GLTE speeds are compared to that.
And on another side not, the average internet speed has actually decreased by 1.9% over the last year in the US. Its an anomoly that no one seems to be able to explain. I have a thought:
Maybe its because we are all being 'throttled back' or 'data optimized' so that our aging infrastructure can handle the increased demand. Instead of reivensting in new technologies the big whigs of the BIG 2 and other ISP's are picking our pockets and keeping the extra for themselves and making us pay twice, with More money and less service.
At least thats how I see it. How about you? Love to hear your thoughts on this.
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