I work in telecom, and the word "Unlimited" is basically heavily scrutinized by some states' Public Utility Commission. Some telco's (*cough* like the one I work at *cough*), provide something like "Unlimited Long Distance!" Sounds great, doesn't it? Yeah, until you read the fine print. The fine print may say something like if you go over some super-duper ass-load of minutes, then we'll start charging you a relatively cheap per-minute rate.

The idea here is that you want to provide an "Unlimited" plan to Joe Average customer, who actually has common sense and will use the "Unlimited" Long Distance service only 3-4 hours a week. But, instead, you get some idiots who are either running a business out of their house using residential service, or some idiot who's logging onto the internet via dial-up onto a long distance number, and they keep their internet on all the time, or some other weird situation where somoene is just utilizing the LD 24/7.

By providing an "Unlimited" service that really isn't Unlimited sounds unfair. And some PUC's agree. If you're going to say it's Unlimited, then it should truly be Unlimited. It's just some companies do provide something that is technically "unlimited" for the 99.9% of the customers that use it. But the company puts in some fine print and rules to protect themselves from the abusive .1% of crazy customers.

However, once you get going on "unlimited plans that aren't really unlimited", you (as a business), sort of open up a bottomless pit that has a slippery slope. If you get some greedy business execs in there, they could start quiety trimming down the bar where folks start getting charged for their "unlimited" use and such. Where I work, the execs are not greedy like that. But both Comcast and Verizon are not known for treating their customers great, and sometimes do some shifty things.

In essence, they're just trying to protect their asses from customers getting service under the guise of "Unlimited" just to find out it's not truly "Unlimited" in some cases.

Not sure if that clarifies the situation, or if it just pisses people off more now that they realize companies can take a word like "unlimited", which is pretty fucking self-explanatory, and bastardize it with a shit load of fine print. Sorry.

Oh, I forgot to mention, that the way some PUC's scrutinize it is that they say if you're going to say it's "Unlimited" then it must truly be Unlimited...not "Unlimited* (see fine print)" Since each state has a different PUC, but a company like Comcast tries to simplify things by providing essentially the same service plans across the whole U.S., they try to avoid words like "Unlimited" which can mean one thing one place and something else somewhere else.

Again, it seems shifty, but a reasonable, honest company is just trying to protect themselves from the lunatic fringe abusive customers that screw over companies. But in doing this, it creates a huge issue when regular customers find out and think they're being shafted some how, or if the company in question gets greedy and starts taking advantage of the situation and customers.

Personally, I say if someone says something is "Unlimited" it should truly be Unlimited. And that's why I'm just a lowly peon at the company, and not the cut-throat shark executive.