Fair Usage, the most unfair game

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For a long long time we at Golden Tiger Telecom Pvt Ltd. (GTTPL) resisted using the system of what most ISPs called Fair Useage Plans, also known as FUP plans. This is a system which is heavily contested across the Internet but is completely ignored

Some articles for easy reference are

http://gadgets.ndtv.com/internet/opinion/fup-fair-usage-policy-is-an-ufp-unfair-policy-718538

There are of course many many such articles as a simple Google search will show.

In a nutshell, an FUP Plan means that there is a free data transfer at top subscribed speed of XMbps (subject to contention ratio , which is a separate topic itself) and after this data transfer is over it drops to a floor speed of Ykbps for the rest of the period

So it is not unusual to see a plan such as FUP 4Mbps 30 days till 80GB then 512kbps after. listed by most ISPs

Somewhere in the 2015 range, these FUP plans evolved a very illogical terminology called unlimited FUP plans.

This was a play on the thought pattern of the end customer which in reality was "unlimited" XMbps Ymonths (technically a correct but totally misleading) till a GB and then kbps pack /subscription.

Eg Unlimited 4Mbps 30 days till 80GB then 512kbps after.

There was a subtle change from FUP to Unlimited in the terminology.

Of course this then leads to a category called Truely Unlimited, which of course is many times more expensive, since the prescribed speed is given 24X7, 7 days a week (subject to contention ratios)

Till a few months ago, GTTPL kept itself to providing only "Truely Unlimited" plans but we were bombarded with messages of "you are too expensive". -

Our motto has been "you pay for a speed, you get that speed, as per international standards, no ifs or buts"

Eventually we have had no choice to offer FUP plans too

Therefore I think I can safely say that todays generation of internet users who are knowledgeable should read the words "unlimited" and "fair use" a bit more carefully than they do now.