Like many of his peers, Suraj Shrestha, an undergraduate student, is fond of watching movies online. This hobby of his has led him to subscribe to an unlimited data plan with his internet service provider but whenever he streams or downloads large data, his internet speed gets reduced to a crawl. He believes that his service provider is ripping him off but in fact, he must be expecting the poor service if he had read all the terms and conditions before subscribing to an unlimited internet plan.

There is a bottom line to unlimited data plans offered by Internet Service Providers (ISP), which in a very basic terms mean that the ‘unlimited internet plan’ that one subscribes to isn’t really ‘unlimited’. The ISPs attribute this to a strategy called ‘fair use policy’, according to which there is a threshold to the unlimited plan. The unlimited plan that one subscribes to is unlimited until they exceed a certain data limit. So, there are many factors a subscriber needs to know before subscribing to an unlimited data plan.

Fair Usage Policy (FUP) has a lot of interventions when it comes to unlimited internet. Although the consumers may not be aware about it, FUP limits the use of internet or the speed after consumption of a certain volume of data. Not everyone uses internet in the same volume. So, ISPs put a cap on the usage at a higher speed to higher need users in order to prevent them from hogging greater bandwidth and bittering the user experience for others.

For example, if your daily cap is set at 1 GB and you exceed the limit, you will still have access to internet but in a highly reduced speed. So, unlimited data plans can be tricky because once you exceed the limit, you will have unlimited internet but at a considerably throttled speed.

Due to this policy, if a customer crosses the fair usage limit, it is considered as a violation of FUP and in such cases, the ISP is expected to contact the customer in regards to reduction in usage or offer other choices such as upgrading to a higher bandwidth plan. Some ISPs have also gone to the extent of suspending or renewing data plan for the consumers who fail to upgrade or reduce usage.

The concept of FUP has been practised for very long  time in other parts of the world, and has been in practise in Nepal since past few years. WorldLink communications started it back on April 1, 2013 and the other ISPs have also followed suit. Now, ISPs in Nepal like Vianet, Subisu, Classictech, WorldLink, all have implemented FUP in their unlimited internet plans. They say that they have such policy in place to provide quality internet services to its customers so that everyone can have the equal advantage of their subscription to the services.  

“If the system determines your usage to be excessive and unfair and affecting other users’ experience, it will notify via SMS or email, then throttle your internet speed at first during peak hours as next action. And as a last resort, it will reduce the speed throughout the day until the subscriptions expires,” says a WorldLink communications representative.

However, consumers shouldn’t be alerted by this. A regular consumer using peer to peer softwares, FTP or sharing high bandwidth content will not be affected by this policy but this can definitely be a nuisance if you are someone who prefers video streaming and uploading or downloading large files like movies.

In case of some internet providers in Nepal, FUP is applicable in all internet plans, while others limit it to unlimited plans only. Vianet, a popular ISP in Nepal applies FUP to all its data plans while Classictech limits it to unlimited shared internet plans only. It is the ISPs who reserve the right to take action when and if they deem necessary.

“If a client uses Vianet’s services to what is deemed to be unreasonable, Vianet reserves the right to significantly reduce internet speed as well as restrict or terminate the service without notice if necessary,” said a representative of Vianet Communications.

Darwin Suwal, an IT professional said, “It’s a marketing gimmick that ISPs use. There is a limitation to unlimited internet. The expression ‘unlimited’ is somewhat deceptive to me.”

But, if the consumers take their time to read the terms and conditions then the implementation of FUP cannot be taken as a deception. Although they do not publicise it, they do put it in their policies. If we look at it from their perspective, they also have a valid reason to use the policy because they need to make sure that one user does not hinder the experience of the others. But, in case of Nepal, customers are not very well aware and it becomes the responsibility of the ISPs to truly and clearly state what kind of internet plan they are subscribing to and what are the possible limitations to it.

Apart from the internet services, FUP is applicable in case of telecom service providers and their unlimited data packages as well. Service providers such as NTC, Ncell, Smartcell are found to be providing unlimited data plans. But even if the internet is unlimited, users may face slower internet speed after a certain usage of data.

It is the responsibility of both service providers and the consumers to understand the data plan and its threshold. While the users should plan their bandwidth usage accordingly, ISPs need to be clear with their deals.