The IT Nerd

Telus has shot back over the circus that they created when they pulled a “bait and switch” with their unlimited data plans. According to Telus, they’re not canceling anyone who doesn’t switch from an unlimited data plan:

“Jim Johannsson, spokesman for Telus, said the company was not forcing customers onto other plans and would continue to honour the Connect 75 Unlimited option for those already signed up.

A small number of customers — or “0.1 per cent” — were being cancelled, he said, because their heavy usage was slowing the company’s wireless network and affecting speeds for the vast majority of users.

“These are not typical or normal users, their activities are placing extreme demands on the network that are simply way beyond reasonable,” he wrote in an e-mail to CBCNews.ca. “Unfortunately we have to take action — imagine an ‘all you can eat buffet’ where one customer comes in and loads all of the potatoes in a giant basket and takes it out to his car. As the restaurant owner, you have to deal with the issue to ensure your other customers are able to enjoy their dinner. We have to take action to protect the other 99.9 per cent of our customers.”

In other words, its the same old song and dance that all the telcos give when they get caught in situations like these. Blame a few mysterious people for the need to screw everybody else over. But what gets my attention is the fact that the Telus sock puppet spokesperson claims that they aren’t just dumping customers who don’t switch despite evidence to the contrary. Of course, that’s likely spin as evidenced by this statement:

“As we contacted those customers, we found that some were well aware that they were violating the terms of service and were not surprised to get a call from us. Just like the wired internet, we know that some abusers employ a strategy of moving from carrier to carrier and abusing the services until they get caught,” he said. “They also tend to be the most vocal on online blogs claiming that their rights have been violated.”

Here’s a news flash dude. I am a blogger and I am not one of your customers. But I am vocal because you are not treating your customers fairly. So that means that your comment is flawed.

There is good news though:

“Customers who cancel their service can do so without penalties and return their aircards for a full refund, Johannson added.”

Great. Let the mass defections from Telus begin! It’s exactly what they deserve.

This entry was posted on August 28, 2008 at 9:50 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags EVDO, Telus. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.