"Unlimited" wireless data...

Fri Dec 3 23:05:18 UTC 2010

This came up in another thread yesterday or today, and I just got the 
solicitation mailer for Clearwire's WiMAX service in Tampa Bay, which they
call "4G", though the ITU disagrees.

The AUP is here: http://www.clear.com/legal/aup

and while it really doesn't have any hidden limits (which is good, because
as someone pointed out on Slashdot today, you can use up a 5GB limit in
about an hour and a half at 21MB/s), it *does* have several limits on content
beyond "must not be illegal" and "must not harm our network"... which limits
I though were verboten to a "common carrier".  

Do the high-speed wireless services *not* claim to be common carriers,
as that term is understood in telecommunications law?

In other news, the words "voice" and "VoIP" do not appear in the Clear AUP.

So, presumably, it would be acceptable to throw their portable access point 
in your backpack, and carry around a WiFi VoIP phone with you...  I don't
seem to be able to locate the AUP that Sprint imposes on 4G customers, so 
I can't tell if it differs.  I can't locate the VZW LTE700 AUP either.

==

In other news (cause it's thread-crossing-weekend on NANOG); Comcast 
announces 250GB residential cablemodem caps -- 2 years ago:

http://gizmodo.com/5043253/comcasts-250gb-data-caps-now-official-starting-in-october

Cheers,
-- jra