In the mobile world, words like ‘free’, ‘open’ and ‘unlimited’ have pretty much lost their original intrinsic meaning. Instead, these words have become mere marketing shells which make it difficult to compare different offers. In many cases a free, open and unlimited mobile Internet access offer usually means that it is only intended for use on the mobile phone, most services are blocked and a cap is put into place if the user manages to consume more than the unlimited data in the offer. So how could one realistically call such offers? How about:
- Small screen web browsing within reasonable limits
or, in case eMail is included:
- Small screen web browsing and eMail access within reasonable limits
To many marketing departments the Internet and the web seem to be the same thing. But please take note: The (world wide) web is just one of many applications using the Internet as a bearer. Therefore only allowing web browsing and eMail is not an Internet offer, it’s a web browsing and eMail offer!
But then, we are all free to give any word unlimited meanings and should be open for other opinions 🙂 Long live the fine print!