Has Your Mobile Broadband Contract Changed? What Should You Do?
There you were enjoying the pleasures of unlimited mobile browsing, using your phone as a modem, tethered to your computer (yes, there are still carriers that don’t charge for this service, depending on what mobile platforms you use!) when BLAM! You get your mobile bill and discover that your provider has quietly changed the terms and conditions of your arrangement.
It is remarkable how we respond to text messages these days. Our own personal firewalls have been fine tuned to ignore anything that can be interpreted as being commercially pitched, which can lead you to ignore very important text messages – such as the one from your carrier informing you of the change to your tariff.
If your network provider has gone about things the right way, you probably have no way out of this. However as major mobile telecoms provider in the UK found out recently, if the changes are not made as per your own terms and conditions, customers will jump ship…
T-Mobile and the Limited Unlimited Tariff
Early 2011 saw T-Mobile UK begin to make changes to the way its network is used by smartphone users following the merger with Orange. This began with a sharing of networks to create the largest mobile phone network in the country, and one with the greatest reach.
To accommodate this, a decision was made that all T-Mobile customers with unlimited tariffs would be placed on a 500 MB cap, and that the new arrangement would come into effect within seven days of the announcement.
This announcement lead to a bit of a storm; many T-Mobile customers to whom this applied had no idea about the change until it appeared on Twitter. It seemed that T-Mobile’s own network was unable to deal with the number of text messages sent to their unlimited tariff customers (or perhaps they all lived in areas services by Orange?).
Most crucially, however, T-Mobile had failed to adhere to their own contract, which stipulates that anyone signing up agrees that T-Mobile can change the contract by giving 30 days’ notice. By failing to meet their own requirements, T-Mobile UK faced a PR disaster as customers who had joined the network to take advantage of the generous tariffs would be legally able to walk away from the contract.
In the event, a rapid backtrack was made by the mobile provider, allowing existing customers to retain their previous unlimited terms, but applying the new cap to new customers or those upgrading to new devices.
This sort of behaviour from ISPs is nothing new, however, and while this story happened in the UK it could easily happen here in the USA.
Be Aware of Your Contract and Know Your Rights
Whenever you’re shopping for a new high speedInternet service, there are various things that you should be aware of. First of all, the details of the contract between you and the provider of your high speed connection should be available for you to read in summary form as well as the more complicated legal jargon.
Second, you should know exactly what you are signing up for, the terms of the agreement and the duration, as well as be aware of any get out clauses and fees that you might have to pay to cancel the contract early. Be clear about what your connection speed is, as well as your usage allowance.
Third, use the World Wide Web to find out more about the contract you have chosen by looking for comments by existing users. There are various places that you might do this, such as consumer forums; the idea is to find out as much about the contract and the company offering it so that you don’t end up with a package that you don’t want.
