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FiOS User Finds Limit of 'Unlimited' Data Plan: 77 TB/Month
An anonymous reader writes "A California user of Verizon's FiOS fiber-optic internet service put his unlimited data plan to the test. Over the month of March, he totaled over 77 terabytes of internet traffic, which finally prompted a call from a Verizon employee to see what he was doing. The user had switched to a 300Mbps/65Mbps plan in January, and averaged 50 terabytes of traffic per month afterward. 'An IT professional who manages a test lab for an Internet storage company, [the user] has been providing friends and family a personal VPN, video streaming, and peer-to-peer file service—running a rack of seven servers with 209TB of raw storage in his house.' The Verizon employee who contacted him said he was violating the service agreement. "Basically he said that my bandwidth usage was excessive (like 30,000 percent higher than their average customer)," [the user] said. '[He] wanted to know WTF I was doing. I told him I have a full rack and run servers, and then he said, "Well, that's against our ToS." And he said I would need to switch to the business service or I would be disconnected in July. It wasn't a super long call.'"
Yep. Running servers is against Verizon's residential ToS. Regardless of how much BW the guy is using, he's breaking the rules.
Right. In fact the user did not find what the title claims. He found the point at which they would ask WTF. And it turns out TF was that he was doing something the TOS said he couldn't. Nice job misleading.
Why offer that much throughput then complain when people actually make good use of it.
If you want people to buy business lines, make it competitive with your home accounts.
perhaps you didn't read the summary. He has a 300Mbps/65Mbps plan (300 megabit/65megabit = 37.5 megabyte/8 megabyte). He used 77 terabytes in a month. Most people only has 1 to 4 terabyte hard drives in their home computers. He used 77 terabytes. That would fill the entire hard drive of the average home computer about 50 times, and he did that in a month. Excessive much? Yes.
According to Math, 37.5 megabytes a second is 3.2 terabytes a day, so he had to be running full bandwidth for 24 days straight. Pretty sure all of our ISPs would be calling us if they noticed we were downloading at full speed for 24 days straight.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
The ToS for residential service forbids running of servers. He was violating the ToS. Sure, he got noticed because he was using a lot of data. But that isn't why they are terminating service.
Verizon doesn't call their plans unlimited.
http://www22.verizon.com/home/fios-fastest-internet/fastest-internet-plans/
No mention of any unlimited plans.
...actually, the ToS specifically says in section 4.3:
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
Here is the Verizon TOS: http://my.verizon.com/central/vzc.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=vzc_help_policies&id=TOS Below are sections where, judging by TFS, he may have been in violation. In my layman's opinion, they had him dead to rights.
"Restrictions on Use. The Service is a consumer grade service and is not designed for or intended to be used for any commercial purpose. You may not resell, re-provision or rent the Service, (either for a fee or without charge) or allow third parties to use the Service via wired, wireless or other means. For example, you may not .... use it for high volume purposes, or engage in similar activities that constitute such use (commercial or non-commercial). ....You also may not exceed the bandwidth usage limitations that Verizon may establish from time to time for the Service, or use the Service to host any type of server. Violation of this section may result in bandwidth restrictions on your Service or suspension or termination of your Service.
"You represent that when you transmit, upload, download, post or submit any content, images or data using the Service you have the legal right to do so and that your use of such content, images or data does not violate the copyright or trademark laws or any other third party rights."
ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY
"General Policy: Verizon reserves the sole discretion to deny or restrict your Service, or immediately to suspend or terminate your Service, if the use of your Service by you or anyone using it, in our sole discretion, violates the Agreement or other Verizon policies, is objectionable or unlawful, interferes with the functioning or use of the Internet or the Verizon network by Verizon or other users, or violates the terms of this Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP")."
"Specific Examples of AUP Violations. The following are examples of conduct which may lead to termination of your Service. Without limiting the general policy in Section 1, it is a violation of the Agreement and this AUP to: ... (g) violate Verizon's or any third party's copyright, trademark, proprietary or other intellectual property rights; (h) engage in any conduct harmful to the Verizon network, the Internet generally or other Internet users; (i) generate excessive amounts of email or other Internet traffic; (j) use the Service to violate any rule, policy or guideline of Verizon; ....
"Copyright Infringement/Repeat Infringer Policy. Verizon respects the intellectual property rights of third parties. Accordingly, you may not store any material or use Verizon's systems or servers in any manner that constitutes an infringement of third party intellectual property rights, including under US copyright law. .... it is the policy of Verizon to suspend or terminate, in appropriate circumstances, the Service provided to any subscriber or account holder who is deemed to infringe third party intellectual property rights, including repeat infringers of copyrights. In addition, Verizon expressly reserves the right to suspend, terminate or take other interim action regarding the Service of any Subscriber or account holder if Verizon, in its sole judgment, believes that circumstances relating to an infringement of third party intellectual property rights warrant such action."