Alfa silently cripples BlackBerry service

samer

A few month ago Alfa started advertising an unlimited BlackBerry service plan for $40+tax/month. A few months after that they applied a Fair Usage Policy limiting you to 500 MB/month, which was still somewhat acceptable considering some people were abusing the network. Next thing you know, they dropped it to 200 MB and they might charge $1 for every additional megabyte (as reported by UXSoup)

Today, Alfa is limiting you to 100 MB/month for $40+VAT – yes, your heard me folks – you are paying $0.44 per megabyte which is roughly 44 times more from what you pay for your home internet connection per megabyte, assuming you have a 4 GB quota and pay $40 a month.

Alfa lured customers into buying their services and slowly started degrading the offer. All telephone operators employing such deceitful business practices should be boycotted or at least complained to.

Coincidentally, the Lebanese government is in talks with RIM (manufacturer of the BlackBerry brand) to grant them access on a server level so they can snoop on you (supposedly for security reasons). This should give you two good reasons to stop using the BIS.

I invite you to complain by sending replies to Alfa's twitter account or their customer care e-mail address.

(feel free to send them to this topic)

Aj_BlaZ

and i was waiting for a 3g connection ...

rolf

I still dont understand why companies like Alfa or Ogero, who have a quasi-monopoly, great revenues, and an advantageous connection to the government, do not use their powers to improve their capacity, and offer users with something that is decent by today's standard and doesnt make lebenon look like a country that is one decade late.
International bandwidth is cheap, and they have the funds to upgrade their network, so, why?

scorpioxy

@rolf, because they don't have to. Think about it, customers have no choice and even if they complain they would still have to use 1 of 2 the companies. So, given a chance to make a lot of money by abusing your customers and offering sub-par services without anybody being able or willing to question you about it....why wouldn't they?

Businesses don't have a conscience, and even if they did they're still run by Lebanese people who we know don't have one.

rolf

scorpioxy wroteBusinesses don't have a conscience, and even if they did they're still run by Lebanese people who we know don't have one.

Only bad businesses, IMHO :)

mezin

i always preferred mtc ... this just gives me more reason ... outrageous !!

MegaCool

Oh dear lord, since when a 100mb is worth 40 freaking dollar??
this should enter Guinness's world record book for the biggest rip off ever,
only sheep and noobie people would sub to this crap service

Flakk

I remember the ad, they said unlimited but near the word unlimited there was an asterisk. It explained that users are limited with 500mb of traffic only. So basically from the beginning it was a complete lie and rip-off.