How unlimited is unlimited?
My recent analysis of the “unlimited” tariffs or offers by the mobile service providers have made me question my understanding of the word “unlimited”. The mobile service providers claim to give us unlimited products which in reality appear to be limited.
Airtel Kenya has Club 10, an attractive product which promises unlimited SMS all day and unlimited Airtel to Airtel calls from 10.00 pm to 6.00 am all for as little as KES 10. What you get after subscribing to it is 100 free SMS which are the unlimited SMS to be enjoyed all day and 60 free minutes which are the unlimited calls which can be made between 10.00 pm and 6.00 am.
Safaricom on the other hand also has this attractive internet data plan that enables users to either subscribe to daily, weekly, or monthly unlimited internet for as little as KES 200, KES 1,000 and KES 3,000 respectively. This product attracted a large following. I mean, who would not want affordable unlimited internet, right? To everyone’s surprise Bob Collymore, Safaricom’s CEO, gave a statement that the internet product was being misused and that the company was contemplating the possibility of scrapping it off. Before this announcement, Safaricom had resulted to internet speed capping. limiting speeds for its subscribers. One could enjoy speeds of 512 kbps up to maximum downloads of 1.5 Gb after which the speeds are drastically reduced to 128 kbps. This in other words translate in minimizing the amount of downloads one can make. However, recent reports from the company indicate that the ‘Unlimited’ service is to be scrapped off as of midnight today (30th April, 2012).
From the above cases, it seems there exists different meanings of the word ‘unlimited’ , one for the subscriber and another one for the mobile service providers.
What does the word “unlimited” mean?
Dictonary.com defines it as:
- Unconstrained
- Unrestricted
- Unfettered.
- Boundless
- Infinite
- Vast.
The Free Dictionary by Farlex defines “unlimited” as:
- Having no restriction or controls
- Having or seeming to have no boundaries; infinite
- Without qualification or exception; absolute
Some linguists might want to argue that there are other meanings by associations, but some words like ‘speeding’ and ‘unlimited’ have no degrees of meaning. It is either this, or that!
From these definitions, what Airtel Kenya and Safaricom are giving us in there supposed “unlimited” products, are a total violation of what the concept stands for.
Take Airtel Kenya Club 10 for instance, they claim to give you “unlimited” SMS all day which in reality is 100 free SMS and “unlimited” calls from 10.00 pm to 6.00 am which also in reality is 60 free calling minutes. This violates the meaning of the word “unlimited” as being boundless and infinite.
Safaricom’s internet speed capping is also a violation of the word “unlimited” since it amounts to placing restrictions or controls, something that violates the meaning of the word unlimited.
Simply put, Safaricom and Airtel should either scrap off the word “unlimited” from their products or give us genuine unlimited offers.