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I'd be very careful to jump on the 'unlimited calls' bandwagon. Voip is especially sensitive to fraud, it happens all the time to practically every voip provider that I know of. That's also why 'unlimited' in marketing is often counterbalanced with fair-use and/or minutes cap in small print.



Niel specifically included all protocols, NNTP, P2P, VoIP etc. when he presented the "unlimited" data plan, to contrast with the kind of data plans the other carriers provide.


> Voip is especially sensitive to fraud, it happens all the time to practically every voip provider that I know of.

Could you clarify what you mean by "fraud"?

Free has been leading VOIP and unlimited calls from set-top boxes so I'm guessing they understand the dynamics of it.


On one hand I mean classic stuff from provider's perspective, like malevolent user setting up a premium number in some remote country (Afganistan, Nigeria, etc.) with insane rates (5$/minute and more), which he is calling for long periods. This is often completely automated with multiple simultaneous calls on multiple premium numbers and callee is actually an IVR. And you can't touch the user, because you've promised him unlimited calls. Such schemes can be even more elaborate with many 'proxy' providers in between, so you don't even know, what is the real cost of the call until after the fact (you receive a giant bill from some remote provider). I've seen examples of voip providers losing thousands of dollars a day and in one case even going under, just because they were unable to respond quickly to fraud.

On the other hand I would like to point out the user's perspective. Recently I've read about a case where a blind person calls a lot. Really a lot. Like from the evening to the morning, many days a week, domestic and international calls. It's his form of communication, since he rarely travels abroad or meets with friends in person. So to reduce his monthly bill, he went to a provider that promised unlimited calls. Needless to say, after a few months they've disconnected his number and billed him for premature end of contract (it is customary to sign 2-year contract), citing small print which mentions fair-use.


They have a fair use clause (at least on their VoIP contracts).


So far, free has a 3GB fair-use softcap.




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