[MrEd]

Many companies implement fair usage policies including Mobile phone, SIMs, Broadband providers etc. It is in place to protect the majority of customers and the company in question. It is not put in place to penalise fair users. Major companies such as O2, Tiscali and lots of others all have fair usage policy on many of their products or services. Few of which specify the criteria.

It would be easy to implement a fixed ratio/policy However, it does not work because a customers usage may vary over time with the type and number of calls made or received. One month they may only receive calls, the next 3 months they may make and receive calls, then the next month make lots of calls.

A reputable dealer will undoubtedly use discretion and warn/request that the cusomter they may be infringing the fair usage policy a number of times before disconnecting (in sever cases) or start to charge for incoming calls on the customers account. Where significant and blatant abuse is obvious, a dealer may decide to immediately suspend an account.

Significant abuse may also indicate other fraudulent or illegal activites.


Additionally, if a fixed fair usage criteria were in place and published, then it would have to be at such a level it would penalise genuine fair users. This impedes business and increases costs for end users. Remember that freeloaders/abusers cost, and these costs have to be bourne buy someone, which would be other fair users.

One analogy could be that, a company does not publish what checks it makes to prevent credit card fraud because this allows fraudsters the opportunity to work around them. Similarly, if a fixed fair usage policy were published, the abusers would take it to the limit. As above, that limit would have to be "high" so as not to cost the company in question too much, and so it does not inhibit fair using customers.

As you can see it is a dynamic balance that has to have some flexibility and consider many factors.

Abusers come in many forms, some are individuals, some companies including other SIM providers. Sometimes the abuse is a few hours or some times hundreds of hours per month. A fixed policy would not work for all, thus necessitating each case to be judged on its own "merits".

The saying goes, "you can't please all of the people all of the time", but most companies will do their best. There will always be a some that feel aggrieved or hard done by. Often these are the abusers themselves, who from experience know full well what they are doing and often move from company to company "abusing" as they go until the the latest "unfortunate" company finds out what hey are up to.

Ultimately, a fair usage policy is there to protect the company and therefore it's existing and "fair using" customers. Fair using customer typical agree with this approach as they want a reliable and stable service provider who is not exposed to the risk of increased costs, or companies not being able to provide the relevant service they have paid for.