Throttled

I have a few slogans for our cellphone company, which I'll call Locodomo because I'm paranoid that actually naming the company in a blogpost will result in something bad.

Here are my best slogans.

Locodomo.  Where internet users go to die (from old age as the page loads).

Locodomo.  Play throttle roulette.

Locodomo.  Want to surf the internet?  The tide is always out.

Locodomo.  UNLIMITED DATA (so long as you don't download anything bigger than 5 MB).

As you've probably surmised, I've been throttled.  The embarrassing thing is that I've been throttled repeatedly and I am the only one in the family who has been forced to tap out by Locodomo.  To be fair, I did not really read the fine print of the contract, which clearly stated (in 3 point font) that they can and will slow you down if you are what they call an excessive internet user that violates the fair use policy, or a 'whale.'  The exact definition of excessive internet use is left vague and ill defined.  I suspect it's left up to the whims of a temperamental Locodomo IT guy named Larry.

My first throttling occurred early in our stay, when I was preparing a blog post.  I uploaded a batch of 250 photos from my phone to my computer, somehow messed up the upload, and uploaded them again.  Possibly even a third time.  It was definitely an upload binge.  But what harm could there be in a few uploads?

2 GB in fifteen minutes?  Bam.  You are done.  Larry put the hammer down and for the next twenty four hours, I was forced to limp along on 160 kbps.  Many of you may be unaware that there is such a thing as Kbps.  I could hear the click and whine of the dial up modem as I stared at my blank screen.

My second throttling occurred after I realized I could watch NFL playoffs and really really wanted to watch the Giants lose.  Well, they won and the Bucs and Vikes lost.  Which brings us to yet another life lesson I'm happy to offer free of charge; streaming a high def NFL game to your laptop consumes an inordinate amount of bandwidth that will render your phone most effective as a coaster for drinks.

So that throttling was definitely not worth it.  Not that I'm necessarily saying a throttling should ever be worth it.

By this time, I successfully complained to a subsidiary of Locodomo about my unfair asphyxiation.  They seemed really sympathetic and sent me a second sim card to swap out in case Locodomo kept suffocating me.  They did warn me that "excessive downloads or uploads" would trigger continued virtual beatings.  I wrote 'hey I get it, I really do.'  I had learned my lesson.

But I didn't really learn my lesson.  I just acknowledged there was a lesson that one might learn.  The third throttling was clearly my fault.  I watched the 49ers lose on one card (and got throttled) and then swapped the sim card and watched the Chiefs win on the other card (and got throttled). 

Despite the throttling, my 160 kbps stream still allowed me to check email and read a webpage an hour.  But Larry must have been harboring a grudge, because after a few hours, I noticed that my speed was down even further.  8 kbps.  At this speed, a sentence of plain text can take a half hour to load.  I asked Amy if she thought double throttling was a thing.  She said 'it is now.'

I contacted our previously helpful subsidiary and noted two things; first, I was pretty sure I'd been Double Throttled and, second, 'Unlimited Internet' and 'Double Throttling' would seem to be mutually incompatible concepts.  The reply I received balanced the impressive politeness of Japan with the terse rigidity of a customer service agent pushed too far along with a dose of inexorable corporate illogic.  I was informed that there are no "true unlimited" internet plans in Japan, and that I'd better be happy with the current 'limited unlimited' plan.  

I responded that I was happy not happy with the plan.