For some time, ISPs and telephony companies have been changing the definition of "unlimited", claiming to offer connections without any limits to their customers. Their customers then enthusiastically use the unlimited connections they pay for, only to have the ISPs balk at the fact that consumers upheld their end of the bargain. If ISPs cannot afford to provide unlimited services, they probably shouldn't be advertising them as unlimited. 
Vodafone was one of these companies: they advertised 'unlimited' Internet access, when what they meant was 500Mb. I don't know about you, but I can download that in about an hour on my not-particularly-fast home broadband. They also advertised unlimited text messaging, which really means "no more than 3,000 text messages a month". Usual corporate doublespeak. You can have as much as you want, so long as it isn't more than we want. Bullshit.
This week the Advertising Standards Authority, who should be standing up against this kind of moronic horseshit backed them up. Vodafone put forward two arguments, which I'm going to look at below.
The first argument was a relativist one. It goes something like this: They said, in June 2008, only a very small percentage of their web browsing pack customers exceeded 500 MB. They said, by contrast, the vast majority of their web browsing pack customers used less than a tenth of the allowance and significantly less than that per month visiting Facebook... because a high percentage used only a very small proportion of the amount allowed, the claim "unlimited mobile internet" was justified
. What this points to is an implicit argument that one is not being limited, because everyone else gets by with the limit. Most people will probably not use the service they pay for, it is true: they may purchase it as a backup service, or for emergencies, or for travel - or they may just go into the shop and be convinced "You really need this £5 a month service!" Does this mean the person who bought it with the earnest belief that they can use it as much as they like ought to be prevented from doing so? I think that's nuts.
Let us imagine a hypothetical user: he gets 500Mb a month 'fair use' from Vodafone. This is the absolute maximum they might expect him to use. Let us say he uses it for twenty of thirty days, and on those days he uses it for ten hours a day. This means that each hour he uses it, he is limited to two megabytes for that hour. This is not 'unlimited' in any meaningful use of the word.
The second argument was one based on intended use: They said Vodafone handsets were set up to access Vodafone live! and the mobile internet through the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) apn; they said some internet content was very data intensive but that could only be accessed if customers chose to change their handset settings
. Do they say in their advertising that you are only allowed to use it in this one way and not any other? If they don't, this seems like a completely bogus argument.
The Advertising Standards Authority have changed the definition of unlimited beyond all reasonableness, and have given permission for ISPs and mobile telephony companies across the country to meet them in this Humpty Dumpty land of newspeak.
