The iPhone and the fair use cap caper

O2 has had a rethink about its iPhone fair use cap, and not a moment too soon as the iPhone goes on sale here this Friday. However, is the revised fair use policy really any better?

The reason I ask is that the new policy announced by the phone operator appears to be a mixture of very clear and definite no-nos (such as taking the SIM out of the iPhone for use in a data-intensive device like a GPRS modem card), sitting alongside new guidelines on acceptable use that no longer feature the ridiculously low cap of 200MB, but which confirm the ongoing existence of a fair use limit, only with no guidance at all on what it is, let alone whether and when a legitimate end user can expect to have their service cut-off, curtailed or otherwise limited for heavy use.

200MB was just plain stupid – I can do that in a day doing nothing more than receiving email and surfing the web – both of which are activities the iPhone is built for and neither can be claimed to be excessive or selfish use of bandwidth.

It is fair enough to place curbs on data modem use, peer-to-peer file sharing and even things like video streaming (but a bit daft as there is a YouTube client built-in to the iPhone), but when it comes to legitimate, non-commercial use of the device and the connection, what will pass for unfair use?

I had a chat earlier with O2 spokesman Nick Wilkins, who did have a very clear outline on how the revised fair use policy will work:

“As long as the heavy use in question is for personal use rather than commercial, and doesn’t break the other parts of the policy, like peer-to-peer file sharing, we are not going to limit a user”. So if you become one of the many who can and will push a good couple of gig through your iPhone every month just surfing the web and doing email, don’t panic.

As for O2, please – do us all a favour and for once write one of these fair use policies in English.
source: http://www.itpro.co.uk/blogs/editorial-blogs/chris-green/979791/the-iphone-and-the-fair-use-cap-caper.thtml
iPhone news