When a tech company tells you something is unlimited, don’t believe ’em.
Last week Microsoft nixed the unlimited storage option from its OneDrive service. Meanwhile, Comcast started billing users extra in some cities if they gobble more than 300GB of bandwidth per month. Last month Sprint followed the lead of most of its competitors and began throttling download speeds of its “unlimited” data plan for customers who exceed 23GB per month of data usage.
The message is clear: if you want to download or store lots of data, you’re going to have to pay more for it. But why isn’t it possible to offer an unlimited service that’s actually, y’know, unlimited?
Some companies that promise unlimited data storage or bandwidth may simply be making cynical marketing claims they know they can’t back up. But telecommunications industry analyst Jan Dawson argues that in most cases, these companies are usually more naive than cynical.
“Service providers often guess wrong and find themselves losing money either because they underestimated average usage or because a small number of people abuse the system and use way more than the provider anticipated,” he says.
The funny thing is, that abuse can ultimately double as market research. If people want more data than you thought, then you know you’ve got something you can charge more money for...
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/techn...-data/ar-CC9auB?li=AAa0dzB&ocid=mailsignoutmd
