Mobile Operator CEO: Customers Under Our Data Caps Don't Use Much Data, So Nobody Needs Unlimited Data

from the lolwut? dept

While we just recently got some bandwidth-providers to come out from under their caps-due-to-congestion rocks, there is a long and storied history of ISPs filling in the void of logic in the debate over caps with creamy, pink nonsense cupcakes. Because, hey! Who doesn't like cupcakes? A long-standing favorite of mine was Sprint's deft change of the English language, when they altered the meaning of "unlimited" to mean "5 gigs," because Sprint thinks the real world blows and we're better off in their make-believe Sprint-land, where all of our parents turn into Kevin Durant.

But, in an apparent effort to put the UK in the mix for countries with CEOs who say really dumb things, mobile operator EE's chief guy of stuff has come out with his own assessment of why their data caps are fine and unlimited plans are unnecessary.

EE is the first mobile operator in the UK to offer 4G services. When it launched last October, it was criticised for imposing tight data caps - including a 500MB plan that could be chewed through in five minutes at the network's maximum speed.

Speaking at MWC 2013, [Olaf] Swantee said that on average users are actually getting through only 1.4GB a month. "It shows that the instinct for unlimited data plans is unnecessary," he said.

Now, on the off chance that you've spent the past week doing massive amounts of peyote, let me take a moment to explain why this kind of logic is so abysmal that it might actually be responsible for global warming. Olaf says that unlimited data plans are not in demand because their customers, who are already under their strict caps, on average use about 1.5GB per month. The logic is flawless...and by flawless, I mean backwards and evil. Of course EE customers that are under strict caps are going to do everything possible to stay under those caps. You're charging them extra if they go over! The very sample you're using in your justification nullifies your entire point.

Let's see...an appropriate analogy. Ah, got it! A dog owner buys one of those electric fence collars for Fido, puts the barrier around a twelve-foot squared kitchen, and then insists that the dog doesn't want to leave the kitchen because it rarely chooses to get the piss shocked out of it by stepping over the barrier. If someone tried to use that kind of sophistry on you, how long before you'd shove a couple of pencils in your ears to make the bad man's voice stop hurting you so?

So way to go, United Kingdom. You're officially accepted into the Dumb CEO League of Extraordinary Un-Logic. Play nice now.

Filed Under: data caps, uk, unlimited data