Fair users will be happy

Welcome to the second of our Suits 2.0 posts. Frank Sixt, Group Finance Director, of Hutchison is back again, this time providing a little more clarity on the philosophy behind the X-Series Fair Use policy.

A few weeks have now passed since we announced the X-Series from 3, and a full week since we launched in the UK. So far the response has been overwhelmingly positive  for which I really thank you all.  Still, some people have been seeing ghosts in the wording of our Fair Use thresholds in our UK offer.  So at the risk of sounding like a broken record, let me go over this area one more time. 

First of all, it’s fair use, not a cap or a limit. The X-Series is about moving away from the old world of charging per byte, per minute, per message, and entering a new world where it’s free when you use it once you have paid  your monthly access fee.

The Fair Use policy is really just about protecting ourselves from the crooks who might seriously abuse what we are offering to the detriment of those using X-Series services fairly.

So what does this mean?

Well, one of my colleagues suggested the best way to describe it is by using an analogy of visiting a friend’s house for dinner. They say to you: “Would you like a drink?” and they point to the drinks cabinet and say, “Help yourself, have whatever drinks you want."

They mean it - have whatever drinks you want, and as many as you want.

However, if they see you starting to put all their bottles in cardboard boxes and loading them into the boot of your car - well, would they think this was covered by their 'Help yourself policy'?

I think not. This is all the X-Series Fair Use policy means.

As another example, we truly believe that a fair user will be hard pressed to use more than 5,000 Skype minutes a month. But imagine they did. Imagine an instance where they had a sick relative in Australia and went way beyond that limit? I would make personally sure that the fair use definition was not invoked to limit their use.

If on the other hand, someone was using Skype on X-Series to run a long distance call centre, well, I’d be equally determined to make sure they were shut down.

That's it.  Simple as that.  So if you think "Fair Use" is being used unfairly in your case, as always, you know where to find me!

//FS

Comments

[ACUK]

I figured that the fair use policy meant this but I'm glad it's been cleared up.

One thing I'd still like to know is can I listen to streaming radio (in various formats) from the likes of Shoutcast? If so, do I need the Gold or will the Silver do?

[Mobile Boffin]

But what if, as your guest, I wanted to drink something from a bottle that I brought with me (i.e. use a different application on the handset other than the ones you indicate)? Are we allowed to do that?

On my home broadband, I am allowed to drink from most any bottle out there on the Internet. Given that I have to use your mail client if I want to send or receive email it sounds like I am limited to only the bottles you have pre-selected for me.

Will there ever be an offering that allows me to select any bottle I want?

[Adrian]

I just read on smstextnews.com about someone who had been extremely enthusiastic about the X-series being charged £1.35 for an email. How does that fit in?

[Jeremy]

Is it possible to use skype in / skype out or only to other skype enabled devices?