More often than not, unlimited telecoms plans are rarely truly unlimited. Caps are usually placed on some of the services. Here we outline five tips and considerations to better navigate ‘unlimited’ plans.
Unlimited calling plans. Unlimited data plans. These types of plans tend to be one of the many offerings by telecoms service providers worldwide. In the Caribbean region, our domestic fixed broadband internet service tends to be uncapped, but the norm respect to mobile cellular data plans, is that they are capped. With respect to calls and texts, either you pay for what you use, or if being used within a plan, limit are usually placed in terms of either free calling minutes, or the number for free calls that can be made, the number of free text that can be sent.
Typically, unlimited plans are a bit pricier that lower tiered plans, which can be a deterrent for some customers. However, if your budget allows and your service consumption is exceeds that of the standard plans, an unlimited plan could be the best option.
However, as was reported in an article published by The Gleaner in the Jamaica last week, some consumers are beginning to realise that although the majors carriers, Digicel and Flow, have been marketing some of their plans as unlimited, in actual fact, that is not the case:
The Fair Trading Commission (FTC) is investigating the complaints as possible cases of misleading advertisement, but says the timeline for wrapping up the probe is uncertain…
…The FTC said the complaints from the public concern the unlimited calling, text and data plans being advertised by telecommunications providers.
“Consumers are induced by the advertised offerings of ‘unlimited’, as they believe that upon purchase they will gain the use of unrestricted calling for the duration of their plan,” the FTC said in a notice on its website.
“Specifically, consumers believe that ‘unlimited’ is used by the telecommunications service providers in its ordinary and usual meaning of ‘not limited or restricted in terms of number, quantity, or extent’,” added the FTC.
“However, while using these plans, consumers discover that the unlimited calling plans are capped and that they are prohibited from making calls even though the plans have not yet expired. Based on the complaints, consumers become aware of the restrictions only after the restrictions are effected,” the commission said.
(Source: The Gleaner)
Although the FTC in Jamaica is may ultimately need to decide whether Digicel and/or Flow are engaging in misleading advertising, the odds are both of the carriers have made publicly available information on their plans that state some of the constraints and conditions that apply. Nevertheless, we outline five tips and considerations that would help you (and others) better navigate ‘unlimited’ plans, and even capped plans.
Unlimited does not necessarily mean unlimited
Depending on the services that have been included in the plan, not all services might be unlimited. Calls – either with respect to calling minutes or number of calls, and text messaging, may be advertised as unlimited; but sometimes the unlimited calls is only for on-network calls. For example, for Digicel Jamaica’s Nuff Data + UNLTD Talk plans, unlimited calls are only allowed to other Digicel customers.
As noted earlier, mobile/cellular Internet and data tend to be capped. Although the data cap may be considerably higher with ‘unlimited plans’ than for other plans that are being offered, a cap still exists.
Number portability can make it difficult to identify off-network numbers
In circumstances where the unlimited calls are limited to on-network calls, thanks to number portability, it can difficult to properly identify which numbers, for example, are Digicel numbers or Flow numbers. Due to number portability, when customers decide to change providers, they no longer have to relinquish their phone numbers.
Hence, although being able to port numbers between the main carriers is a major benefit to consumers – since your mobile phone number essentially has become a personal identifier – it can no longer be automatically be assumed that a number that initially had been assigned to a particular carrier (Flow, for example), is still assigned to that carrier. As a result, it is possible that although a call recipient’s number suggests that s/he is a customer of your service provider, that may no longer be the case, and could fall outside an ‘unlimited calling’ basket.
Use of services outside the plan, depletes the plan faster
Regardless of the service plan, your telecoms company tracks your consumption. So, although your plan might include unlimited calling, your calls are still tracked and would be zero-rated by the monitoring platform, consistent with the terms of the plan. For services that are capped under the plan, such as mobile/cellular data, the monitoring platform will deduct your consumption from the cap until the plan expires.
In the other hand, for services that fall outside of the plan, and whenever those service are accessed, you are charged, and those charges are deducted from the amount you paid for the plan. As a result, and illustrated in Figure 1, those deductions effectively lower the cap on some of the services under your plan.
Figure 1: Hypothetical example of the deductions made to an unlimited plan (Source: ICT Pulse)
As the example show, instead of having 100 MB of data, thanks to off-network calls and the text messages – for which there are no provisions under the plan – the value of the plan is now equivalent to 78 MB. Further, as more off-network calls are made and text messages are sent, the free data allocation continues to decrease.
When the money is depleted or a cap is reached, the service stops
Following from our hypothetical example, a combination of two things are likely. First, the out of plan services deplete the amount paid for the plan, and/or, one or more of the capped services are consumed to their (revised) limit. When this happens, and although the life of plan has not been reached, the plan ends.
Typically, plans are not configured to still provide customers with access to unlimited components of their plan, such as unlimited calls, but no data (referring to our hypothetical example). You are thus required to replenish your account – by paying for and activating a new plan, in order to have service – which as expected, benefits the service providers.
It can be difficult to track one’s consumption
Following from our earlier point on challenges in managing on-network and off-network calls, in light of number portability, and with respect to data (including broadband Internet) services, it can be difficult to track what has been consumed. Ideally, we would all wish to be able to easily monitor how much data we are using, especially when the capped allocation is modest.
Although we might have a broad sense that some activities consume more data than others; for example, instant message and emails with no (or small) attachments tend to require less bandwidth than video chats and video streaming, there are other variables at play that contribute to the bandwidth consumed. An important factor is the quality of the service, and consequently, the extent to which data has to be resent until it is successfully delivered to its destination.
Luckily, many smartphones have the capability to allow you to track your data use, and even configure alerts should you be approaching your limit. However, some facilities are more sophisticated than others, and so it may not be easy to align with your billing cycle, or to track consumption against your data cap.
In summary, the service places offered by telecoms companies can provide an attractive mix of services to suit a broad range of budgets. However, their use still need to be carefully managed, in order to limit out of plan charges, the frequency of replenishment, and ultimately, to ensure a favourable balance between cost, quality and availability of service(s) for which you have paid.
