These two words are the most abused terms in broadband advertising. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) did publish an critical adjudication against Carphone Warehouse using “free forever” in its TalkTalk advertising, but there is still a lot of marketing material which is open to misunderstanding by naive consumers in particular as to the nature of the costs and limits of a particular product or service.

Let me be clear about this – There is no such thing as “free” or “unlimited” anything which doesn’t at the very least rely on the law of averages. Any company using these terms is relying on income from something which helps make particular options or features available at no additional cost. Usually they are suffixed by an asterisk or other reference to a footnote detailing the terms, or worse, text such as “Terms and conditions apply. See website for details”.
So why am I so wound up about this? – I view using these terms as being dishonest.. Let’s look at the word “unlimited” for a second. It means “without limit”. Therefore by definition “unlimited internet” means “internet without limits”. Now I can understand that it is not possible to run a service which is not contended (and thus limited in some way) but my issue is where the small print includes concepts such as a ‘Fair Usage Policy’ (which comes under various names including Acceptable Use Policy, Sustainable Usage Policy, etc.)

These policies effectively place limited on what is and is not acceptable, thereby rendering the product no longer unlimited. The honest service providers call these services ‘unmetered’. I am not suggesting that all products should employ charging by usage, but if they have limits in the form of FUP/SUPs, they should be clearly labelled as such. ‘Unmetered’ is understood to mean you won’t get a meter reading each month on how much you’ve used.

Recently, several broadband service providers have started offering ‘free broadband’. This is another term I taker issue with–It’s not really free.. you have to subscribe to some other service to qualify so in reality there is a cost. This is slightly less of an issue as it can be argued the broadband is free whether you take it or not, however I am quite concerned many users do not see past the headline when choosing a provider.

I recently ordered some Christmas presents from an online retailer who was using Initial City-Link to deliver them. This made me quite happy as I see them on average once a week at least for all sorts of deliveries so they usually don’t get the address wrong.

The package was scheduled to arrive on a morning delivery (pre 12:00) one day and I had to go out that afternoon. I was “carded” (they couldn’t deliver it and left a card saying “We called whilst you were away) at around 13:50 that afternoon, so I called the supplier who confirmed it was supposed to come that morning. They arranged for it to be re-delivered the next day although they didn’t promise it would be done that morning, but they said they would try.

The following day the morning and afternoon passed so I called the supplier after I could not reach City-Link myself other than an automated line which said they had tried to deliver it twice.. Their website still said it was in the van.. They had similar problems getting through to City-Link but I was lucky as they had one person on the phone with them and the rep who was helping me sent her colleague an Instant Message (IM) with my delivery reference and they confirmed it would be going back to the depot and I could collect it that evening.
So I went to the depot to collect it and sure enough they found the package. I mentioned they had never called that day and they first said it wasn’t on the van, then they checked their computer and said it had been on the van and they did try to deliver it.. I asked what time this was considering I was home all day and never heard a knock or had a card through the letterbox at which point she duly informed me “Well maybe they never got around to you..”

I wasn’t aware City-Link’s definition of a “delivery” is “trying to get around to you” but there we go.

I’ve written about bank security before (see Innovation in banking) with concerns over password authentication generally in banking transactions. This evening, I received a phone call from the fraud departments of one of the financial institutions I have a credit card with wanting to discuss my account. I immediately asked for their details and called back on a known number and was put through to the person in question.

At the end of the call this individual advised me that I could always identify them as a legitimate caller by having them provide me with some personal information about me. Although they have called me on a known number they have listed for me, if for example I had my wallet and mobile phone stolen, then calling me on my mobile phone would alert thieves that the bank fraud department was onto them.

Although banks are getting a lot better (certainly with respect to having no objection to a request for a customer to call them back), some more thought needs to be put into this process in the world where identity theft is becoming increasingly common.

Having just read some comments about the “reliability of VoIP” I am reminded of a problem that I see on a daily basis when users confuse the difference between technology and an implementation of a particular service. These are obviously interrelated but many people do not grasp the true difference leading otherwise good technology to be given a bad name because of a poor service.

Voice-over-IP (VoIP) has been marketed in many ways but the most common association I would expect an average Internet user to link it with is “cheap phone calls” as it cuts out the traditional telecommunications operator from part or all of the phone call, thus reducing the cost primarily to that of the Internet connection itself. VoIP technology is used by many companies that use calling cards, etc. and sometimes (I would not go as far as saying often as I am not sure how well it can be quantified) quality of the phone call can be quite poor as VoIP providers reduce the bandwidth available (or compress using an inferior codec) to the user in order to fit more calls within a pipe. This, bundled with other service problems often results in users blaming VoIP as a technology for not being ready or mature, rather than considering the implementation of the particular service.

The same label currently applies to “Virtual Private Servers” (VPSs) in many cases as they are considered ‘cheap alternatives to dedicated servers’ whereas a VPS based service can in fact be superior by allowing easier failover/migration options in the event of problems or scalability issues and better redundancy in many cases.
Fundementally it comes back to the same problem that affects today’s society–It’s all about price. This factor drives decision making so much that technologies are often associated to prices alone. There is a gross misunderstanding that the level of service provided by two companies with varying prices must be the same, and therefore the cheaper option must be better by definition. It is often not considered that differences in price are quite possibly related to service quality, redundancy, expansion capacity, etc.

Consumers – Wake up!

Consumers are often treated with kid gloves and there is a perception they need strong protection in terms of industry regulation to ensure no ‘cowboys’ can enter a market. This is a frequent suggestion by individuals who find themselves at the mercy of a company that has gone out of business, etc. These types of regulation are a huge burden on smaller businesses and may well prohibit new innovative entrants from engaging in the market as the cost of entry is higher.

It is important to accept consumers require extra protection than that afforded to businesses for the simple reason contract values are smaller and let’s face it, we can’t “negotiate” a contract with the bus company on common terms when we board one during rush hour. However, this needs common sense to be applied and consumers should share the responsibility by not choosing suppliers, no matter which industry it is in, by price alone and not labelling an entire technology based on experiences from one provider, usually a low cost one.