What you don't know about your broadband subscription - Pt. 1
Are you aware of your internet subscription's Fair Use Policy? Did your internet service provider (ISP) made sure that you were given the opportunity to be informed of this policy? If the answer to those questions are No, you've been duped.
It is not surprising that our local neighborhood ISPs are shady business-people. Almost anyone has had a nasty experience with them from bad customer service to outrageous billing and credit issues. But what you are about to read is something bigger than your common drive-by shooting. Figuratively speaking. Why? Because this applies to ALL broadband subscribers in the PH as a standard business practice.
After the news hit on NTC proposing a Memorandum Order (MO) on Minimum Speed of Broadband Connections and then cancelled it after much criticism, I did a little bit of research. Disclaimer: this is not an expert analysis but just from somebody who has too much online time on his hands.
To recap, there were two important clauses to take note in the proposed MO.
ISPs were to specify the service speeds and reliability to customers. Currently, only the "best effort" speeds are made known to customers, service reliability is not included.
ISPs were given the right to set maximum volume of data (data cap) allowed per subscriber per day.
The PH blogosphere went mad because of that second clause. We didn't take time to read, ingest and appreciate like good wine the first clause which is actually pro-consumer. After about a couple of public hearings, the NTC regrouped and made a second MO. This one still has the first clause but the second one which suggested the data cap was removed.
And then the furor died down. Just like that.
Well, folks, what a lot of people don't know is that, even before the first MO and now after the second MO, data caps have been in effect since day one. It is being applied to most (if not all, I can't really effectively verify) broadband subscriptions by what they call Fair Use Policy. Take a look at Globe's (I chose them because I currently subscribe to one of their services).
Globe Tattoo Prepaid
...provides a peak volume capacity currently set at 1 GB per account per day. Should you exceed the peak capacity within the day; the service will be temporarily unavailable until end of day. However, service will resume on the following day.
Globe Tattoo Postpaid
...provides a peak volume capacity currently set at 10 GB per account per month.
Globe WiMAX
For prepaid: 1 GB per account per day.
If a customer exceeds the peak capacity, service will temporarily be unavailable until end of day.For postpaid 512 kbps: 16 GB to 20 GB per account per month
For postpaid 1 mbps: 21 GB to 25 GB per account per month
If a customer exceeds the peak capacity, there will be slow browsing speed within the month.
Globe Super Surf
...provides a peak volume capacity currently set at 800 MB per account per day. Should you exceed the peak capacity within the day; the service will be temporarily unavailable until end of day
I'm too lazy to look up other ISPs' fair use policies because they do an awesome job of hiding it.
Feet on the ground, I certainly understand why ISPs would have Fair Use Policies. It is an effective way of ensuring that most customers have the best internet experience possible and not just to a select group of "data hogs." What I have a problem with is the fact (yes, it is a fact) that the ISPs do not proactively inform their would-be subscribers of this policy. Even their installers, customer service reps and probably the branch managers are not aware of their own Fair Use Policies to the T. Unethical, tsk tsk.
So go ahead, look up your ISP's website and go over your contract fine print. Try to see what's your Fair Use Policy.
