FiOS User Finds Limit of 'Unlimited' Data Plan: 77 TB/Month 573
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.'"
but the sign says all you can eat (Score:3, Funny)
Arrr, tis no man but a remorseless downloading machine.
should of just told him... (Score:4, Funny)
77TB? Sigh. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Truth in advertising? (Score:4, Funny)
It's not an unlimited plan.
It's an unlimited* plan.
*limited
Re:Sounds reasonable to me. (Score:4, Funny)
In other news, I bet the guy's pr0n collection is stupendous!
Re:77TB? Sigh. (Score:5, Funny)
We use the English system, where there are 3 shits to a crap, 1760 craps to a holycrap, ...
realization (Score:4, Funny)
Humm,
Verizon FIOS: yeah ok, I have 20/5 d/u
DAAP Music streaming
p2p bit torrent
VPN
UPnP movie server
web page
TOR
SSH tunneling
File server
Still haven't hit anything near that transfer rate in over 5 years total, I need more friends...
Re:Sounds reasonable to me. (Score:5, Funny)
Yep. Running servers is against Verizon's residential ToS. Regardless of how much BW the guy is using, he's breaking the rules.
BINGO!
Another misleading Slashdot title. This is fairly run of the mill for residential ISP service. I bet it was a short conversation! They called him to try to find out if he was doing anything against their ToS, because of his bandwidth usage, and he flat out admitted it.
If he had answered "Netflix" (and that was believable), would the conversation have gone differently? Hard to say, because that conversation didn't even happen.
I can see that conversation turning out fine:
"Sir, records show you moved 77 terabytes, with a T, as in 77 thousand gigabytes"
"Yeah, I don't know how to explain it, I have been watching a lot of netflix lately"
"Sir this amount of traffic is equivalent to watching netflix on 90 screens at a time, 24 hours a day, every day of the month"
"Yeah, you obviously haven't gotten addicted to Breaking Bad yet"
Re:Sounds reasonable to me. (Score:5, Funny)
So, if his answer would have been, "Porn. 77TB of porn" Verizon would have had no recourse?
The whole 'server' restriction is more about pushing business to Verizon's partners then limiting bandwidth. I have a couple of home servers for e-mail and my video security system. Nobody gets into them but me, so I don't pop up on anyone's usage radar*. If Verizon doesn't like the bandwidth, then have them address that in the ToS (specifically with an upload restriction). But they can't say they don't like competition by users who roll their own because of antitrust issues.
*I don't have Verizon service.
Re:Sounds reasonable to me. (Score:3, Funny)
If you bought a rope with an "unlimited" weight rating, and it snapped at 160lbs., I'm sure you would be a little perturbed... for a brief few moments.
Zoloft, scourge of society (Score:5, Funny)
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, do these sound like the actions of a man whose had ALL he could eat?
-- Phil Hartman, RiP
Re:Sounds reasonable to me. (Score:4, Funny)
Why offer an all you can eat sushi buffet and then complain when someone brings his pet walrus in to gorge? I thought it was unlimited!
Re:77TB? Sigh. (Score:3, Funny)
We use the English system, where there are 3 shits to a crap, 1760 craps to a holycrap, ...
Did the math... It appears he was taking nearly 44 Billion Holycraps on the system that month. That's enough to make even GOD notice.
Re:Sounds reasonable to me. (Score:5, Funny)
So your water company (Mother Nature, LLC) would cut off your service without prior notice. :-)
Thank you.
Re: Sounds reasonable to me. (Score:5, Funny)