Telkom changes tune on uncapped data

So says Hermann Otto, who is among the tech-savvy people who signed up for Telkom's R599 per month, much-hyped "always uncapped, never throttled" LTE (long-term evolution) high-speed wireless broadband service, only to be told that from this month the network has actioned the acceptable usage policy (AUP) in its small-print terms and conditions, which does indeed mean capping and throttling.

Making matters worse is the fact that the AUP is vaguely worded, leaving users to find out through use that 200 to 250GB is the AUP cap, at which point their service is throttled to "a useless" 256kbs from the original high-speed 90mbps.

And complaints to Telkom's call centre have led not to an AUP discussion but a referral to "technical".

"Not getting what we paid for," tweeted Monika Matthee on Friday. "False advertising and breach of contract."

She and others are basing that on the "No, really, it's uncapped wireless broadband" assurance which Telkom used in its original adverts for the package.

"It really is uncapped for almost all applications and uses. These include e-mail, browsing, streaming traffic such as video, music, Youtube, AppleTV, Box Office, Netflix, VPN, VOiP, real-time online gaming, backups and gaming downloads.

"For these you will never be capped or throttled.it's a truly unlimited experience.Telkom's 50GB fair usage policy cap applies only to Bit Torrent traffic via peer to peer and news servers protocols."

But what's actually happening is that subscribers are being throttled based on the total amount of data they consume, regardless of whether it is on bandwidth-intensive protocols.

"The service is not uncapped, even though it is advertised as uncapped," said gaming and technology journalist, Marco Cocomello.

"We have been forced to accept these new terms which have drastically changed the service in its entirety."

Mark Chadwick said no detail on how the AUP would be implemented or what unfair usage was, was disclosed in Telkom's original terms and conditions.

"The wording has been updated this month to try to make abuse seem like 'over use' but with no limits stated and attempts to get this information from Telkom have proved useless," he said.

This is a lot like a mother giving her young son a bowl of "pick 'n mix" chocolates and telling him he can eat as much as he likes.

The child can't believe it. "No, really," the mom assures him, "I mean it. Just go easy on the Turkish Delights and the caramels".

"No problem, the boy says. "They aren't my favourites anyway", and begins to tuck in, with relish.

As he gorges, the mother becomes alarmed and takes the bowl away from him, rationing him to a few a day, even though he hasn't touched the Turkish Delights or the caramels.

Did the mother really expect that child not to take advantage of the "eat all you like" invitation?

I asked Telkom head of communication Jacqui O'Sullivan why subscribers weren't told, in detail, upfront, what Telkom considered "acceptable" usage.

I didn't get a direct answer.

She did say that Telkom had exercised "much leniency" in enforcing its AUP since the launch of the product last year but that in recent months "the excessive usage of a few customers has negatively impacted customers with more average usage".

"Some have downloaded as much as four terabytes of data through their LTE connections," she said. "That's about 720 hours of full high-definition viewing a month or 25 hours of full high-definition viewing a day."

Only 11% of Telkom's existing LTE users would be throttled because of excessive usage, O'Sullivan said.

In response to Cocomello's complaint that he and others were trapped in the contract for the full 24 months because of the prohibitive penalties which apply to early cancellation, O'Sullivan said he and others could cancel with no penalties.

"I don't think we'll see many taking up the offer but it's only right to offer it," she said.

Indeed, given that the promised "truly unlimited experience" truly didn't turn out to be that for those, who, like the boy with the bowl of chocolates, took the provider at its word.

CONTACT WENDY:

• E-mail: consumer@knowler.co.za
• Twitter: @wendyknowler

DATA COSTS BYTE HARD

I asked SA's four networks to comment on the fact that data costs in this country are excessive.

Only Telkom's Jacqui O' Sullivan did so within the tight deadline, arguing that Telkom was "leading the charge" to lower data prices.

"FreeMe costs a third [at 69c per MB] of what the next-lowest operator is charging [R1.75 per MB] and our lowest in-bundle rate is 29c per MB and is provided to all our prepaid customers," she said.

Telkom had also set up more than 6000 hot spots where its customers could get free data and make calls on WhatsApp, Viber, and BBM free, she said.

• Mobile data volumes have increased by 72% in SA in the past year.

#Shelfie

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