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So... was this customer under the impression that the data plan was literally unlimited?

If they call it unlimited, it damned well ought to be unlimited.

They call it unlimited, but you also have to stick within the TOS, which clearly forbids this sort of use case on a residential contract.

Well, I think the "unlimited" and "no heavy bandwidth usage" clauses are not compatible with each other.

He did violate ToS by running the servers though, and overall, Verizon looks really good in this story, if I were them I would consider this a free advertisement.

I'd say it's unlimited for any current residential use. Even streaming HD video 24/7 wouldn't do 77 TB/month.

that was not even the real issue. they called to check what was generating all that traffic and he told them that he was running servers - that was against the tos, not the bandwidth he used.

Exactly. If the bandwidth was being used for non-TOS-breaking activity (maybe he is a particle accelerator hobbyist, or whatever), it sounds like it wouldn't have been a problem. Verizon called to ask what he was doing to use that kind of bandwidth, not calling to say they were going to cancel his service.

Both parties look like the good guys to me. As a bonus, it was interesting to me to read about his setup.

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