Telus reneges on “unlimited” data plans
In an ethically-questionable business move, Canadian carrier Telus is pushing customers off of an “unlimited” data plan - with force. Reports note that the carrier is discontinuing it’s $75 “no-cap” plan used with data cards and moving them to a $65 1GB package. This is a huge problem for users in rural parts of Canada where only dial-up internet service has been available. Telus is citing its Terms of Service as a reason to discontinue customers who are on the plan.
The TOS states: ”You will use the service for customary voice, messaging and wireless Internet data purposes only. You will not use the service for: multi-media streaming; voice over Internet protocol; or any other application which uses excessive network capacity or may otherwise adversely impact other users, that is not made available to you by TELUS. You will not resell the service to any other person. You will not abuse any flat rate or unlimited use service plan offered by TELUS.”
Carrier terms of service are often nebulous and they themselves have a tendency to wonder what the hell they mean. Some users are asking what “customary” is. Your definition, our definition, and that of Telus will probably yield three entirely different results. Either way, we think that this is particularly sketchy and shouldn’t be tolerated by affected Canadians. Throw some ‘bows, fellas.
Thanks, Brian!
Tags: Canada, data plans, Telus, Unlimited
It seems to be a practice which is followed all over the world, in the past it was done here in India by Tata Indicom a CDMA service provider
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This is a great start for Telus to lose customers. Good job fellas!
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@Tyrone D
I don’t think they will loose a lot of customers (at least not Businesses, it all feels like the Oilpatch is on crack when it comes to (Cell-)Phone and Data). Lots of people complain about their pricing and service (call them up and see how long it takes until you talk to a human voice) but they don’t do anything about it. Telus (the Evil Empire) should expect people to use a “no cap” plan for the whole basket of applications incl. file sharing etc. At one point and time (7-8 years ago) they’ve had an unlimited 18.00H canadian call plan. It was really unlimited.
Until they came and capped it at 1000 min. The excuse was “people abused it”. How can something be abused what’s unlimited? If I have the opportunity to talk to people every night 4-5 hours or more that’s not abuse.
BTW We have some clients on the 1GB Dataplan for remote Data aquisition, lots o Data for these remote sites. We had to go EVDO-A because it is the faster and cheaper alternative. We used rugged Modems made by a canadian Company.
Unfortunatly Rogers is neither with their HSPDA nor with their WIMAX Service all the way to the areas where I would like to see them to provide good speeds to out clients. I think Rogers snoozed on that one big time.
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1GB? Ouch, and I thought the standard US 5GB was limiting…
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Canadian carriers have always reamed their customers.
@EPS: They aren’t cutting them off, they charge them like $10/GB after that.
It’s pure greed without any worry about their network or any of that blabber. If this was in the US, they would have been sued 500,000 times over by now. Of course I don’t know if Canada has Class-Action lawsuits or even a law against that type of practice.
And “ethically-questionable?” No, it’s unethical, plain and simple. Telus is run by a bunch of assholes and we should treat them as such.
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ouch wow I dare say this makes sprint look good when compared to telus.
why the hell have you canadians NOT grabbed your broom and pitchfork and called shenanigans yet?
this us pure coperate greed and it IS unethical nomatter how you slice it.
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I agree with Galvatron. Lets grab some brooms and pitchforks and go after them. Heck, I’m an American so all the Canadians would do is deport me back to the US to which I would reply, “Thanks for the free lift fellas!”
I’ll bring jackets and beer! I also got a couple of hot strippers out of speeding tickets and they owe me some favors so I’ll bring them too!
Then all we would need is some twine, an old lawnmower, some bubble gum and half a roll of duct tape. We’ll go Macgyver on their ass.
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Wow. I think Canada officially has the worst data/wireless plans out of any developed country. It was bad enough with Rogers charging $30 for 200mb of data. Aren’t there laws against this type of abuse?
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when i win the lottery i will go start my own cell phone company in canada, have comparable voice and data pricing to us providers and watch my competitors cry when their churn rate rises to 5% or more. I probably would have a 5gb limit on aircards for abuse reasons, but unlimited handset and blackberry data (non tethering) for cheap (~$30).
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Matt S: It would be cheaper to use the money and do a hostile takeover of an existing company, like Rogers. Hire a bunch of corporate raiders to take a strong hold of the company and dump a bunch of VC to upgrade the infrastructure and then drop the price 6 months later. I would get rid of ETF’s in total and offer “phone-pay-off” plans that add a few dollars each month to the bill that pays off the phone. After a few months your subsidy is paid back and they can leave no problem, if they leave earlier then all they have to pay is the remaining subsidy.
Then couple that with a 30% drop in prices. Offer truly unlimited plans and promise no sneaky “network management.”
That would be enough to start a wireless price war. Get more VC based on the user churn to your carrier to buy up all the patents on cell technology in Canada and the charge the other service providers exorbitant fees.
When they scream fowl, tell them its to keep your prices so low as to “pay back the people of Canada for the years of abuse they suffered from all the greedy unethical carriers.”
OF course, you would probably be sued out of existence or even assassinated.
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Actually instead of a contract, a subsidy payback would work. Allow them to choose how long they want to take to pay off the phone and divide the subsidy by that term. Even with the price added, your prices would still be significantly lower. I would also allow overage limits for example if they overuse text messages instead of a $400 bill, if the txt overages reach 75% of the price of the unlimited text package, it would automatically give them the unlimited text package (with their consent of course). This way they don’t get a surprise bill and the not pay it.
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”You will use the service for customary voice, messaging and wireless Internet data purposes only. You will not use the service for: multi-media streaming; voice over Internet protocol; or any other application which uses excessive network capacity or may otherwise adversely impact other users, that is not made available to you by TELUS. You will not resell the service to any other person. You will not abuse any flat rate or unlimited use service plan offered by TELUS.”
NO MULTI-MEDIA Steaming - No iTunes music stream, or YouTube. CRAP THAT SUCKS!
VoIP - NO SKYPE?! DOUBLE CRAP THAT SUCKS!
AIM/YAHOO - Im sure they would love to say that uses excessive network capacity too. TRIPLE CRAP THAT SUCKS!
“Abuse” flat rate or Unlimited plans is hard to do when your offered the world without a fine print. Insert fine print here, and then force people off a plan I guess is how Telus likes to do it.
Complete and utter bull-s, if you ask me. I mean, I know Canada is getting raped on data charges, and one minute they have the BEST calling plan in the world, the next they cut it to 30 minutes for $100 and 1MB of data. JESUS !!
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It would be nice if Telus would actually define this a bit more clearly. The wording of what is not allowed is vague. They entrance us with their plan, and they they disappoint.
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The purpose is meant to be vague. Lawyers, The only profession that can write 500,000 lines to say 1 fucking sentence, OKAY? This way, they can manipulate the interpretation any way they want. Well you know, he looked at a video on youtube so we were just in dropping his contract and putting him on the $500 per bit package because we defined “casual use” in our contract and casual use, is GIVING US MONEY AND LOSING THE FUCKING AIRCARD, OKAY! GIVE US MORE MONEY, WE WANT MONEY AND WE DON’T LIKE TO SPEND ANY. Network Upgrades - FUCK THAT! We are going to enable “network management” so we don’t have to worry about our “casual use” customers and we never have to worry about upgrading again. Our service doesn’t suck, we have free voicemail! Service? heck with that, we’ll spend $50 on a free package that we paid some indian to write in 30 seconds and add a new useless feature.
“oh no don’t use those guys, sure they have this high falluting network, but they can’t touch our DRM’d to hell free music service! AHA! We win, give another $10M raise to the chief officers - for keeping our heads so far our asses we can’t smell the stink from the shit we spew.
Give me a god damn break. I know I am a gun-toting, cigarette smoking, red meat eating asshole - but slap my ass and call me sally, these guys take the cake. Corrupt, sheesh they make me look as corrupt as John Denver for Christs sake.
We need to invent a new word for how greedy and corrupt these people are. I know, We will call them the IRS!
I’m not even Canadian. I only go to Canada to raid the tax free store for tons of cheap booze and porn. But I did drink 6 miller lights, smoked half a pack of cigarettes and ate a dozen McDonalds hamburgers in those old fashion, non-biodegradable styrofoam containers.
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Looks like a conflict in the contract. An unlimited plan to a reasonable person would have no limits as to the use. By imposing the limitations, the plan is by definition not unlimited. In Canada there is class-action suits. It is relatively new in the judicial system and the process of certification is not too unlike the US but is more difficult as the courts do not have a big body of law nor quite as willing to let the genie out of the bottle.
Canada, unlike the US is still very much a common law country.
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