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Personal Fair Usage - EE 4G LTE Essentials Unlimited - Contract Issues

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  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 0 Newbie
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    edited 31 October at 12:25PM
    voluted said:
    Ectophile said:
    voluted said:
    PHK said:
    voluted said:
    What they are saying is the service is unlimited but they then try to limit it! 

    I have "unlimited" with EE with the same clause about 600GB in the terms, they recently sent me a letter to say my contract was coming to an end but don't worry as everything carries on as normal, at the end of the letter it says "data: 9999 GB".

    Unlimited with restrictions shouldn't be sold as unlimited IMHO, switching you to a business tariff (if you aren't one) is possibly an unfair term, the reduction in speed could possibly be an unfair term as well as it's varying the service sold and forcing the consumer to accepted reduced benefits under the contract, either than or we are in CCRs territory.   
    Unfortunately anyone who realistically stood any chance of getting the use of the term "unlimited" stopped believed it was perfectly acceptable to use "Unlimited" as long as it was asterisked with *Fair Use Policy applies. That would be both the ASA and Ofcom.

    For what it's worth, I agree with you. "Unlimited" has a very clear definition that is "not limited or restricted in terms of number, quantity, or extent." By introducing throttling when you get to a particular amount of data then it clearly IS restricted. The argument that technically they're not applying a strict limit on the data, but rather the speed, therefore there is no hard limit on the data allowance is ridiculous IMO. This has been going on for the best part of two decades though now, so I don't see it changing anytime soon.
    It’s slightly more nuanced than that. The argument given to ASA, Ofcom, Trading Standards etc is that the average user on the tariff uses much much less than the figure quoted and only 1% (or some such low value) of subscribers use the quoted figure or higher. Additionally (as you say) it isn’t a hard cut off at that figure. 

     
    I understand but that's not really the argument we are making here. The argument we are making is that "unlimited" has a very clear dictionary definition and I (and many others) do not agree that a service with a limit qualifies as unlimited.

    I have seen the argument made (and it's a real stretch) that since the connection speed could never be limited, no connection could be truly unlimited and, by extension, applying throttling is perfectly acceptable. I'd have to disagree with this, as there is a clear difference between a punitive limit applied over and above the connection speed and the fact that you don't have an infinite connection speed.

    It would be interesting to see how the courts would rule on this. As I said I think that if the ISP tinkers with anything which ultimately restricts how much a user can download, it is by extension placing a limit on their download capabilities. Sadly nobody seems to have had a desire to take this into a court that can set precedent.

    Whilst semantics would be fair game for court wordsmiths the question arises of whether EE is gaining something at the expense of its customers by using their established practices. If so, this could be considered a criminal offence under Fraud Act 2006.

    When punitive measures are applied on an unlimited plan, EE continues to collect revenue as though the 100Gbps speed limit was still in play and when knowingly they have reduced the speed to less than 10Gbps and without telling the subscriber this has happed. They gain on two counts: by freeing up bandwidth they encourage new business and by collecting revenue they are not entitled to, especially if the 10Gb product is sold at a cheaper rate. The court would need to establish whether this was intentional or a result of unintended consequences namely a failure of EE management and policy.

    I think tou're clutching at straws here.  They are applying the policy that was in the Terms and Conditions of the contract that you agreed to.


    On that subject I notice that some 5G plans from other providers are advertised as 500Gb rather Unlimited. Business Terms use a subscript on the word Unlimited pointing to a footnote to qualify what Unlimited means. This is not the case for Residential Terms which remains misleading.

    One thing I forgot to mention previously is that Business terms make no mention of the maximum number of connected devices or tethering however one must qualify as a trader to be a subscriber.


    Their residential T&Cs have an entire paragraph about Unlimited and what it means so I have no idea what you're referring to here.

    https://ee.co.uk/content/dam/help/terms-and-conditions/price-plans/mobile/sim-only-price-plans/ee-simo-plan-tncs-from290824.pdf

    In terms of the actual service comparison page, neither residential nor business qualifies what "Unlimited" means outside of the "Legal bit" at the bottom of the page, and there is no asterisk pointing people to this. As stated, the ASA and Ofcom both seem to be happy with the use of "Unlimited" to mean "With a limit but the vast majority will not hit it." You're going to be hard-pushed to get them to roll over by claiming this is misleading. You might be able to convince a judge but the chances of them turning up to a small claims hearing for this are slim to none, so you'd win by default rather than winning by proving them wrong.

    600GB is a lot, especially on a mobile service. You may think they're being unreasonable but it's fairly obvious pretty much nobody agrees with you here. If you can't convince anyone on here, I don't think you'll get anywhere with EE, an adjudication service or a judge.

    Thank you for replying. The ISP you refer to has a business side where the use of the word limited is qualified on Page 3 by a superscripted link, 7, whose detail appears in a footnote on Page 19 as part of their Terms of Service. The document can be found here.

    By comparison the use of the word unlimited in the residential side leaves a lot to be desired in terms of clarity and could be considered unethical. Their product page can be found here. Where is says “Are you an existing EE mobile customer?” move the switch to Yes to display this…



    Notice the wording on the banner “Never run out of data”. Below that, the word Unlimited is not superscripted to qualify what it means.






  • Grumpy_chap
    Grumpy_chap Posts: 16,269 Forumite
    Tenth Anniversary 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    edited 31 October at 12:25PM



    Notice the wording on the banner “Never run out of data”. Below that, the word Unlimited is not superscripted to qualify what it means.


    I fail to follow the relevance of that comment to your concern.

    This is still a mobile phone contract with one SIM card intended for use in a phone / smart phone or similar.
    That contract permits tethering to up to 12 devices.
    Presumably, if you stay within that constraint you will never run out of data.

    If you connect more than 12 devices, then the data may be cut off.

    If you want a true home / mobile broadband alternative to home service, then that is what you should purchase.
  • voluted
    voluted Posts: 67 Forumite
    10 Posts Name Dropper
    edited 31 October at 12:25PM
    voluted said:
    Ectophile said:
    voluted said:
    PHK said:
    voluted said:
    What they are saying is the service is unlimited but they then try to limit it! 

    I have "unlimited" with EE with the same clause about 600GB in the terms, they recently sent me a letter to say my contract was coming to an end but don't worry as everything carries on as normal, at the end of the letter it says "data: 9999 GB".

    Unlimited with restrictions shouldn't be sold as unlimited IMHO, switching you to a business tariff (if you aren't one) is possibly an unfair term, the reduction in speed could possibly be an unfair term as well as it's varying the service sold and forcing the consumer to accepted reduced benefits under the contract, either than or we are in CCRs territory.   
    Unfortunately anyone who realistically stood any chance of getting the use of the term "unlimited" stopped believed it was perfectly acceptable to use "Unlimited" as long as it was asterisked with *Fair Use Policy applies. That would be both the ASA and Ofcom.

    For what it's worth, I agree with you. "Unlimited" has a very clear definition that is "not limited or restricted in terms of number, quantity, or extent." By introducing throttling when you get to a particular amount of data then it clearly IS restricted. The argument that technically they're not applying a strict limit on the data, but rather the speed, therefore there is no hard limit on the data allowance is ridiculous IMO. This has been going on for the best part of two decades though now, so I don't see it changing anytime soon.
    It’s slightly more nuanced than that. The argument given to ASA, Ofcom, Trading Standards etc is that the average user on the tariff uses much much less than the figure quoted and only 1% (or some such low value) of subscribers use the quoted figure or higher. Additionally (as you say) it isn’t a hard cut off at that figure. 

     
    I understand but that's not really the argument we are making here. The argument we are making is that "unlimited" has a very clear dictionary definition and I (and many others) do not agree that a service with a limit qualifies as unlimited.

    I have seen the argument made (and it's a real stretch) that since the connection speed could never be limited, no connection could be truly unlimited and, by extension, applying throttling is perfectly acceptable. I'd have to disagree with this, as there is a clear difference between a punitive limit applied over and above the connection speed and the fact that you don't have an infinite connection speed.

    It would be interesting to see how the courts would rule on this. As I said I think that if the ISP tinkers with anything which ultimately restricts how much a user can download, it is by extension placing a limit on their download capabilities. Sadly nobody seems to have had a desire to take this into a court that can set precedent.

    Whilst semantics would be fair game for court wordsmiths the question arises of whether EE is gaining something at the expense of its customers by using their established practices. If so, this could be considered a criminal offence under Fraud Act 2006.

    When punitive measures are applied on an unlimited plan, EE continues to collect revenue as though the 100Gbps speed limit was still in play and when knowingly they have reduced the speed to less than 10Gbps and without telling the subscriber this has happed. They gain on two counts: by freeing up bandwidth they encourage new business and by collecting revenue they are not entitled to, especially if the 10Gb product is sold at a cheaper rate. The court would need to establish whether this was intentional or a result of unintended consequences namely a failure of EE management and policy.

    I think tou're clutching at straws here.  They are applying the policy that was in the Terms and Conditions of the contract that you agreed to.


    On that subject I notice that some 5G plans from other providers are advertised as 500Gb rather Unlimited. Business Terms use a subscript on the word Unlimited pointing to a footnote to qualify what Unlimited means. This is not the case for Residential Terms which remains misleading.

    One thing I forgot to mention previously is that Business terms make no mention of the maximum number of connected devices or tethering however one must qualify as a trader to be a subscriber.


    Their residential T&Cs have an entire paragraph about Unlimited and what it means so I have no idea what you're referring to here.

    https://ee.co.uk/content/dam/help/terms-and-conditions/price-plans/mobile/sim-only-price-plans/ee-simo-plan-tncs-from290824.pdf

    In terms of the actual service comparison page, neither residential nor business qualifies what "Unlimited" means outside of the "Legal bit" at the bottom of the page, and there is no asterisk pointing people to this. As stated, the ASA and Ofcom both seem to be happy with the use of "Unlimited" to mean "With a limit but the vast majority will not hit it." You're going to be hard-pushed to get them to roll over by claiming this is misleading. You might be able to convince a judge but the chances of them turning up to a small claims hearing for this are slim to none, so you'd win by default rather than winning by proving them wrong.

    600GB is a lot, especially on a mobile service. You may think they're being unreasonable but it's fairly obvious pretty much nobody agrees with you here. If you can't convince anyone on here, I don't think you'll get anywhere with EE, an adjudication service or a judge.

    Thank you for replying. The ISP you refer to has a business side where the use of the word limited is qualified on Page 3 by a superscripted link, 7, whose detail appears in a footnote on Page 19 as part of their Terms of Service. The document can be found here.

    By comparison the use of the word unlimited in the residential side leaves a lot to be desired in terms of clarity and could be considered unethical. Their product page can be found here. Where is says “Are you an existing EE mobile customer?” move the switch to Yes to display this…



    Notice the wording on the banner “Never run out of data”. Below that, the word Unlimited is not superscripted to qualify what it means.






    Fundamentally the issue is that you are using a service designed for mobile phones in a router to supply a broadband connection to your home. At that point, your arguments pretty much go out of the window. So we need to look at whether these limitations are reasonable for a phone user. I'd say they are. 

    You'd need to go full whack for 5 1/2 days at 10Mbps to hit the 600GB cap. If we assume that half the day you're otherwise occupied (sleeping, eating etc) then that's 11 days, or a third of the entire month. If you also work and aren't glued to your phone whilst doing so, it's basically going to take every free second you have downloading at full pelt to hit that cap in a month.

    Trying to argue that the service isn't suitable for usage it isn't sold for isn't going to get you anywhere. My advice would be to approach EE, advise them that you have purchased an unsuitable service and see if they'd allow you out of the contract penalty-free if you agree to sign up to their mobile broadband service. I can't see them refusing, although you never know.

  • visidigi
    visidigi Posts: 6,462 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    I'll say it again.... if you want to use a limited contract to do this for the home...there's nothing stopping you having two contracts and spreading the usage.
  • flaneurs_lobster
    flaneurs_lobster Posts: 4,494 Forumite
    Fifth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    edited 31 October at 12:25PM
    voluted said:

    Thank you for replying. Yes, I agree, as you know consumer purchases are normally accompanied by a cooling off period to allow a change of mind however, what happens after that time.

    In both Business and Residential terms there no mention of the procedure for terminating the contract. So contractually it would appear that one is stuck with a product one is unhappy with. Having discussed this with residential customer services it was said that one could end the contract but it would cost about £500 to do so.

    I recently had a doorstep cold call from a fibre broadband salesman. He had obviously met people trapped in broadband contracts and unable to afford the buyout. He said his company would put up to £300 toward the buyout or if it was larger adjust the monthly premium to suite.

    Its likely that deals like this are available from other broadband suppliers.

    On that subject I notice that some 5G plans from other providers are advertised as 500Gb rather Unlimited. Business Terms use a subscript on the word Unlimited pointing to a footnote to qualify what Unlimited means. This is not the case for Residential Terms which remains misleading.

    One thing I forgot to mention previously is that Business terms make no mention of the maximum number of connected devices or tethering however one must qualify as a trader to be a subscriber.


    Really, you trust someone cold calling to be telling the truth?

    Given the margins I doubt that any will offer to buy out a contract.

    The best way with these mobile contracts is to take the one month option. Sure you pay a bit more, but you can always upgrade later.

    Also sounds like you are putting sim in a router then the limits apply, as in reality this is a mobile sim.

    https://community.ee.co.uk/t5/Archived-Posts/Unlimited-data-sim-card-in-a-4G-router-Actually-unlimited/td-p/946857

    If you want a sim for a router then EE do tariffs just for this purpose.

    https://ee.co.uk/broadband/mobile-broadband

    https://www.be-fibre.co.uk/contract-buyout/

    Albeit not £300.

    Contract buyouts are not completely unheard of, but I'd say they're not exactly commonplace either.
    Seem to crop up when an area has just been cabled for FTTP, had a couple of ISPs offer this to us FTTC hold-outs.
  • 400ixl said:
    You are still comparing a mobile phone contract when you need a mobile broadband contract for what you want to do.

    Other than not being willing to pay for the service you want, why do you keep going back around in the same circles?

    Either accept the risk and get on with using a mobile phone contract or get a more suitable mobile broadband one. 

    Thank you for your opinion...you may have misunderstood, these posts are about the wording within an ISP's Terms of Service, a legal document and whether there there is a breach of consumer rights. It is not about subsciber experience as this would be better served elsewhere on the forum.
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 0 Newbie
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    edited 31 October at 12:25PM
    voluted said:
    voluted said:
    Ectophile said:
    voluted said:
    PHK said:
    voluted said:
    What they are saying is the service is unlimited but they then try to limit it! 

    I have "unlimited" with EE with the same clause about 600GB in the terms, they recently sent me a letter to say my contract was coming to an end but don't worry as everything carries on as normal, at the end of the letter it says "data: 9999 GB".

    Unlimited with restrictions shouldn't be sold as unlimited IMHO, switching you to a business tariff (if you aren't one) is possibly an unfair term, the reduction in speed could possibly be an unfair term as well as it's varying the service sold and forcing the consumer to accepted reduced benefits under the contract, either than or we are in CCRs territory.   
    Unfortunately anyone who realistically stood any chance of getting the use of the term "unlimited" stopped believed it was perfectly acceptable to use "Unlimited" as long as it was asterisked with *Fair Use Policy applies. That would be both the ASA and Ofcom.

    For what it's worth, I agree with you. "Unlimited" has a very clear definition that is "not limited or restricted in terms of number, quantity, or extent." By introducing throttling when you get to a particular amount of data then it clearly IS restricted. The argument that technically they're not applying a strict limit on the data, but rather the speed, therefore there is no hard limit on the data allowance is ridiculous IMO. This has been going on for the best part of two decades though now, so I don't see it changing anytime soon.
    It’s slightly more nuanced than that. The argument given to ASA, Ofcom, Trading Standards etc is that the average user on the tariff uses much much less than the figure quoted and only 1% (or some such low value) of subscribers use the quoted figure or higher. Additionally (as you say) it isn’t a hard cut off at that figure. 

     
    I understand but that's not really the argument we are making here. The argument we are making is that "unlimited" has a very clear dictionary definition and I (and many others) do not agree that a service with a limit qualifies as unlimited.

    I have seen the argument made (and it's a real stretch) that since the connection speed could never be limited, no connection could be truly unlimited and, by extension, applying throttling is perfectly acceptable. I'd have to disagree with this, as there is a clear difference between a punitive limit applied over and above the connection speed and the fact that you don't have an infinite connection speed.

    It would be interesting to see how the courts would rule on this. As I said I think that if the ISP tinkers with anything which ultimately restricts how much a user can download, it is by extension placing a limit on their download capabilities. Sadly nobody seems to have had a desire to take this into a court that can set precedent.

    Whilst semantics would be fair game for court wordsmiths the question arises of whether EE is gaining something at the expense of its customers by using their established practices. If so, this could be considered a criminal offence under Fraud Act 2006.

    When punitive measures are applied on an unlimited plan, EE continues to collect revenue as though the 100Gbps speed limit was still in play and when knowingly they have reduced the speed to less than 10Gbps and without telling the subscriber this has happed. They gain on two counts: by freeing up bandwidth they encourage new business and by collecting revenue they are not entitled to, especially if the 10Gb product is sold at a cheaper rate. The court would need to establish whether this was intentional or a result of unintended consequences namely a failure of EE management and policy.

    I think tou're clutching at straws here.  They are applying the policy that was in the Terms and Conditions of the contract that you agreed to.


    On that subject I notice that some 5G plans from other providers are advertised as 500Gb rather Unlimited. Business Terms use a subscript on the word Unlimited pointing to a footnote to qualify what Unlimited means. This is not the case for Residential Terms which remains misleading.

    One thing I forgot to mention previously is that Business terms make no mention of the maximum number of connected devices or tethering however one must qualify as a trader to be a subscriber.


    Their residential T&Cs have an entire paragraph about Unlimited and what it means so I have no idea what you're referring to here.

    https://ee.co.uk/content/dam/help/terms-and-conditions/price-plans/mobile/sim-only-price-plans/ee-simo-plan-tncs-from290824.pdf

    In terms of the actual service comparison page, neither residential nor business qualifies what "Unlimited" means outside of the "Legal bit" at the bottom of the page, and there is no asterisk pointing people to this. As stated, the ASA and Ofcom both seem to be happy with the use of "Unlimited" to mean "With a limit but the vast majority will not hit it." You're going to be hard-pushed to get them to roll over by claiming this is misleading. You might be able to convince a judge but the chances of them turning up to a small claims hearing for this are slim to none, so you'd win by default rather than winning by proving them wrong.

    600GB is a lot, especially on a mobile service. You may think they're being unreasonable but it's fairly obvious pretty much nobody agrees with you here. If you can't convince anyone on here, I don't think you'll get anywhere with EE, an adjudication service or a judge.

    Thank you for replying. The ISP you refer to has a business side where the use of the word limited is qualified on Page 3 by a superscripted link, 7, whose detail appears in a footnote on Page 19 as part of their Terms of Service. The document can be found here.

    By comparison the use of the word unlimited in the residential side leaves a lot to be desired in terms of clarity and could be considered unethical. Their product page can be found here. Where is says “Are you an existing EE mobile customer?” move the switch to Yes to display this…



    Notice the wording on the banner “Never run out of data”. Below that, the word Unlimited is not superscripted to qualify what it means.






    Fundamentally the issue is that you are using a service designed for mobile phones in a router to supply a broadband connection to your home. At that point, your arguments pretty much go out of the window. So we need to look at whether these limitations are reasonable for a phone user. I'd say they are. 

    You'd need to go full whack for 5 1/2 days at 10Mbps to hit the 600GB cap. If we assume that half the day you're otherwise occupied (sleeping, eating etc) then that's 11 days, or a third of the entire month. If you also work and aren't glued to your phone whilst doing so, it's basically going to take every free second you have downloading at full pelt to hit that cap in a month.

    Trying to argue that the service isn't suitable for usage it isn't sold for isn't going to get you anywhere. My advice would be to approach EE, advise them that you have purchased an unsuitable service and see if they'd allow you out of the contract penalty-free if you agree to sign up to their mobile broadband service. I can't see them refusing, although you never know.

    Thank you for your opinion...these posts are not about user experience but about consumer rights within an ISP's Terms of Service. The ISP sells both commercial and retail products. The commercial or business products are ethical in that their Terms of Service are honestly stated. The retail Terms of Service by comparison are unethical and may breach consumer rights.
  • voluted
    voluted Posts: 67 Forumite
    10 Posts Name Dropper
    edited 31 October at 12:25PM
    voluted said:
    voluted said:
    Ectophile said:
    voluted said:
    PHK said:
    voluted said:
    What they are saying is the service is unlimited but they then try to limit it! 

    I have "unlimited" with EE with the same clause about 600GB in the terms, they recently sent me a letter to say my contract was coming to an end but don't worry as everything carries on as normal, at the end of the letter it says "data: 9999 GB".

    Unlimited with restrictions shouldn't be sold as unlimited IMHO, switching you to a business tariff (if you aren't one) is possibly an unfair term, the reduction in speed could possibly be an unfair term as well as it's varying the service sold and forcing the consumer to accepted reduced benefits under the contract, either than or we are in CCRs territory.   
    Unfortunately anyone who realistically stood any chance of getting the use of the term "unlimited" stopped believed it was perfectly acceptable to use "Unlimited" as long as it was asterisked with *Fair Use Policy applies. That would be both the ASA and Ofcom.

    For what it's worth, I agree with you. "Unlimited" has a very clear definition that is "not limited or restricted in terms of number, quantity, or extent." By introducing throttling when you get to a particular amount of data then it clearly IS restricted. The argument that technically they're not applying a strict limit on the data, but rather the speed, therefore there is no hard limit on the data allowance is ridiculous IMO. This has been going on for the best part of two decades though now, so I don't see it changing anytime soon.
    It’s slightly more nuanced than that. The argument given to ASA, Ofcom, Trading Standards etc is that the average user on the tariff uses much much less than the figure quoted and only 1% (or some such low value) of subscribers use the quoted figure or higher. Additionally (as you say) it isn’t a hard cut off at that figure. 

     
    I understand but that's not really the argument we are making here. The argument we are making is that "unlimited" has a very clear dictionary definition and I (and many others) do not agree that a service with a limit qualifies as unlimited.

    I have seen the argument made (and it's a real stretch) that since the connection speed could never be limited, no connection could be truly unlimited and, by extension, applying throttling is perfectly acceptable. I'd have to disagree with this, as there is a clear difference between a punitive limit applied over and above the connection speed and the fact that you don't have an infinite connection speed.

    It would be interesting to see how the courts would rule on this. As I said I think that if the ISP tinkers with anything which ultimately restricts how much a user can download, it is by extension placing a limit on their download capabilities. Sadly nobody seems to have had a desire to take this into a court that can set precedent.

    Whilst semantics would be fair game for court wordsmiths the question arises of whether EE is gaining something at the expense of its customers by using their established practices. If so, this could be considered a criminal offence under Fraud Act 2006.

    When punitive measures are applied on an unlimited plan, EE continues to collect revenue as though the 100Gbps speed limit was still in play and when knowingly they have reduced the speed to less than 10Gbps and without telling the subscriber this has happed. They gain on two counts: by freeing up bandwidth they encourage new business and by collecting revenue they are not entitled to, especially if the 10Gb product is sold at a cheaper rate. The court would need to establish whether this was intentional or a result of unintended consequences namely a failure of EE management and policy.

    I think tou're clutching at straws here.  They are applying the policy that was in the Terms and Conditions of the contract that you agreed to.


    On that subject I notice that some 5G plans from other providers are advertised as 500Gb rather Unlimited. Business Terms use a subscript on the word Unlimited pointing to a footnote to qualify what Unlimited means. This is not the case for Residential Terms which remains misleading.

    One thing I forgot to mention previously is that Business terms make no mention of the maximum number of connected devices or tethering however one must qualify as a trader to be a subscriber.


    Their residential T&Cs have an entire paragraph about Unlimited and what it means so I have no idea what you're referring to here.

    https://ee.co.uk/content/dam/help/terms-and-conditions/price-plans/mobile/sim-only-price-plans/ee-simo-plan-tncs-from290824.pdf

    In terms of the actual service comparison page, neither residential nor business qualifies what "Unlimited" means outside of the "Legal bit" at the bottom of the page, and there is no asterisk pointing people to this. As stated, the ASA and Ofcom both seem to be happy with the use of "Unlimited" to mean "With a limit but the vast majority will not hit it." You're going to be hard-pushed to get them to roll over by claiming this is misleading. You might be able to convince a judge but the chances of them turning up to a small claims hearing for this are slim to none, so you'd win by default rather than winning by proving them wrong.

    600GB is a lot, especially on a mobile service. You may think they're being unreasonable but it's fairly obvious pretty much nobody agrees with you here. If you can't convince anyone on here, I don't think you'll get anywhere with EE, an adjudication service or a judge.

    Thank you for replying. The ISP you refer to has a business side where the use of the word limited is qualified on Page 3 by a superscripted link, 7, whose detail appears in a footnote on Page 19 as part of their Terms of Service. The document can be found here.

    By comparison the use of the word unlimited in the residential side leaves a lot to be desired in terms of clarity and could be considered unethical. Their product page can be found here. Where is says “Are you an existing EE mobile customer?” move the switch to Yes to display this…



    Notice the wording on the banner “Never run out of data”. Below that, the word Unlimited is not superscripted to qualify what it means.






    Fundamentally the issue is that you are using a service designed for mobile phones in a router to supply a broadband connection to your home. At that point, your arguments pretty much go out of the window. So we need to look at whether these limitations are reasonable for a phone user. I'd say they are. 

    You'd need to go full whack for 5 1/2 days at 10Mbps to hit the 600GB cap. If we assume that half the day you're otherwise occupied (sleeping, eating etc) then that's 11 days, or a third of the entire month. If you also work and aren't glued to your phone whilst doing so, it's basically going to take every free second you have downloading at full pelt to hit that cap in a month.

    Trying to argue that the service isn't suitable for usage it isn't sold for isn't going to get you anywhere. My advice would be to approach EE, advise them that you have purchased an unsuitable service and see if they'd allow you out of the contract penalty-free if you agree to sign up to their mobile broadband service. I can't see them refusing, although you never know.

    Thank you for your opinion...these posts are not about user experience but about consumer rights within an ISP's Terms of Service. The ISP sells both commercial and retail products. The commercial or business products are ethical in that their Terms of Service are honestly stated. The retail Terms of Service by comparison are unethical and may breach consumer rights.
    And when you're using a service for a purpose it is not intended for, what rights do you have? You can't claim it's not fit for purpose, as its purpose is to supply phone calls/texts and data to a mobile phone, so what argument do you have then?

    Again, are these terms "unethical" when they're applied to mobile phone usage? As I've said (and you've seemingly ignored) you'd have to go out of your way if you were using this SIM in a mobile phone (which is where it is supposed to be used) to breach that 600GB threshold. There's no good reason I can see that you'd be tethering 12+ devices to your phone either. I think you really need to own your mistake or, if you thought you'd found a loophole, accept that you were caught out.
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 0 Newbie
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    edited 31 October at 12:25PM
    voluted said:
    voluted said:
    voluted said:
    Ectophile said:
    voluted said:
    PHK said:
    voluted said:
    What they are saying is the service is unlimited but they then try to limit it! 

    I have "unlimited" with EE with the same clause about 600GB in the terms, they recently sent me a letter to say my contract was coming to an end but don't worry as everything carries on as normal, at the end of the letter it says "data: 9999 GB".

    Unlimited with restrictions shouldn't be sold as unlimited IMHO, switching you to a business tariff (if you aren't one) is possibly an unfair term, the reduction in speed could possibly be an unfair term as well as it's varying the service sold and forcing the consumer to accepted reduced benefits under the contract, either than or we are in CCRs territory.   
    Unfortunately anyone who realistically stood any chance of getting the use of the term "unlimited" stopped believed it was perfectly acceptable to use "Unlimited" as long as it was asterisked with *Fair Use Policy applies. That would be both the ASA and Ofcom.

    For what it's worth, I agree with you. "Unlimited" has a very clear definition that is "not limited or restricted in terms of number, quantity, or extent." By introducing throttling when you get to a particular amount of data then it clearly IS restricted. The argument that technically they're not applying a strict limit on the data, but rather the speed, therefore there is no hard limit on the data allowance is ridiculous IMO. This has been going on for the best part of two decades though now, so I don't see it changing anytime soon.
    It’s slightly more nuanced than that. The argument given to ASA, Ofcom, Trading Standards etc is that the average user on the tariff uses much much less than the figure quoted and only 1% (or some such low value) of subscribers use the quoted figure or higher. Additionally (as you say) it isn’t a hard cut off at that figure. 

     
    I understand but that's not really the argument we are making here. The argument we are making is that "unlimited" has a very clear dictionary definition and I (and many others) do not agree that a service with a limit qualifies as unlimited.

    I have seen the argument made (and it's a real stretch) that since the connection speed could never be limited, no connection could be truly unlimited and, by extension, applying throttling is perfectly acceptable. I'd have to disagree with this, as there is a clear difference between a punitive limit applied over and above the connection speed and the fact that you don't have an infinite connection speed.

    It would be interesting to see how the courts would rule on this. As I said I think that if the ISP tinkers with anything which ultimately restricts how much a user can download, it is by extension placing a limit on their download capabilities. Sadly nobody seems to have had a desire to take this into a court that can set precedent.

    Whilst semantics would be fair game for court wordsmiths the question arises of whether EE is gaining something at the expense of its customers by using their established practices. If so, this could be considered a criminal offence under Fraud Act 2006.

    When punitive measures are applied on an unlimited plan, EE continues to collect revenue as though the 100Gbps speed limit was still in play and when knowingly they have reduced the speed to less than 10Gbps and without telling the subscriber this has happed. They gain on two counts: by freeing up bandwidth they encourage new business and by collecting revenue they are not entitled to, especially if the 10Gb product is sold at a cheaper rate. The court would need to establish whether this was intentional or a result of unintended consequences namely a failure of EE management and policy.

    I think tou're clutching at straws here.  They are applying the policy that was in the Terms and Conditions of the contract that you agreed to.


    On that subject I notice that some 5G plans from other providers are advertised as 500Gb rather Unlimited. Business Terms use a subscript on the word Unlimited pointing to a footnote to qualify what Unlimited means. This is not the case for Residential Terms which remains misleading.

    One thing I forgot to mention previously is that Business terms make no mention of the maximum number of connected devices or tethering however one must qualify as a trader to be a subscriber.


    Their residential T&Cs have an entire paragraph about Unlimited and what it means so I have no idea what you're referring to here.

    https://ee.co.uk/content/dam/help/terms-and-conditions/price-plans/mobile/sim-only-price-plans/ee-simo-plan-tncs-from290824.pdf

    In terms of the actual service comparison page, neither residential nor business qualifies what "Unlimited" means outside of the "Legal bit" at the bottom of the page, and there is no asterisk pointing people to this. As stated, the ASA and Ofcom both seem to be happy with the use of "Unlimited" to mean "With a limit but the vast majority will not hit it." You're going to be hard-pushed to get them to roll over by claiming this is misleading. You might be able to convince a judge but the chances of them turning up to a small claims hearing for this are slim to none, so you'd win by default rather than winning by proving them wrong.

    600GB is a lot, especially on a mobile service. You may think they're being unreasonable but it's fairly obvious pretty much nobody agrees with you here. If you can't convince anyone on here, I don't think you'll get anywhere with EE, an adjudication service or a judge.

    Thank you for replying. The ISP you refer to has a business side where the use of the word limited is qualified on Page 3 by a superscripted link, 7, whose detail appears in a footnote on Page 19 as part of their Terms of Service. The document can be found here.

    By comparison the use of the word unlimited in the residential side leaves a lot to be desired in terms of clarity and could be considered unethical. Their product page can be found here. Where is says “Are you an existing EE mobile customer?” move the switch to Yes to display this…



    Notice the wording on the banner “Never run out of data”. Below that, the word Unlimited is not superscripted to qualify what it means.






    Fundamentally the issue is that you are using a service designed for mobile phones in a router to supply a broadband connection to your home. At that point, your arguments pretty much go out of the window. So we need to look at whether these limitations are reasonable for a phone user. I'd say they are. 

    You'd need to go full whack for 5 1/2 days at 10Mbps to hit the 600GB cap. If we assume that half the day you're otherwise occupied (sleeping, eating etc) then that's 11 days, or a third of the entire month. If you also work and aren't glued to your phone whilst doing so, it's basically going to take every free second you have downloading at full pelt to hit that cap in a month.

    Trying to argue that the service isn't suitable for usage it isn't sold for isn't going to get you anywhere. My advice would be to approach EE, advise them that you have purchased an unsuitable service and see if they'd allow you out of the contract penalty-free if you agree to sign up to their mobile broadband service. I can't see them refusing, although you never know.

    Thank you for your opinion...these posts are not about user experience but about consumer rights within an ISP's Terms of Service. The ISP sells both commercial and retail products. The commercial or business products are ethical in that their Terms of Service are honestly stated. The retail Terms of Service by comparison are unethical and may breach consumer rights.
    And when you're using a service for a purpose it is not intended for, what rights do you have? You can't claim it's not fit for purpose, as its purpose is to supply phone calls/texts and data to a mobile phone, so what argument do you have then?

    Again, are these terms "unethical" when they're applied to mobile phone usage? As I've said (and you've seemingly ignored) you'd have to go out of your way if you were using this SIM in a mobile phone (which is where it is supposed to be used) to breach that 600GB threshold. There's no good reason I can see that you'd be tethering 12+ devices to your phone either. I think you really need to own your mistake or, if you thought you'd found a loophole, accept that you were caught out.
    Thank you for your reply...quite a few responders including yourself want to discuss user experience and technical issues so I will create a new post relating to this in the appropriate formum section. Perception is, that one can see that legal jargon and Ofcom transparency are not your forte so lets hope that you and other responders can indulge themselves on the new thread.

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