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GCI delivers unlimited downloads of customers' money.
GCI spokesman David Morris either does not know what his own company does to abuse its customers or he openly lied about it in statements to the media:
GCI said it hasn’t yet charged anyone fees for exceeding the data limits (some customers dispute this), but the company began contacting its heaviest data users this summer to move them to new, limited plans. The company is also upgrading Internet speed for its customers this year at no extra cost.
GCI said it hasn’t decided when to enforce the data limits on everyone else. The crackdown might not happen until next year, according to Morris.
Apparently Morris is living in a time warp, because “next year” is this year.
After our article earlier this morning, Stop the Cap! started receiving e-mail from angry GCI customers with bills showing outrageous overlimit fees running into the hundreds of dollars GCI claims they are not charging.
Our reader Steve in Alaska sums it up:
“GCI is a bad actor that abuses its customers with bait and switch broadband, baiting customers with expensive unlimited bundled plans and then switching them to limited plans with unjustified fees,” he writes. “A legal investigation exploring whether this company is violating consumer protection laws is required, especially after misrepresenting the nature of these overcharges in the Alaskan media through its spokesman.”
GCI is apparently iterating the credit card industry’s tricks and traps.
Our reader Scott’s latest broadband bill shows just how abusive GCI pricing can get:
GCI: the Grinch That Stole the Internet (click to enlarge)
Scott was floored by GCI’s Festival of Overcharging, which turned a $55 a month bill for broadband into nearly $200. It exemplifies everything we’ve warned about over the past two years with these pricing schemes:
Well it finally happened, I got hit with GCI internet bill shock, $196.58 total for my 8Mbps plan with 25GB usage.
My usage prior to this has always been around 15-20GB/mo according to them — just the usual web surfing/e-mail with a little online gaming over the weekends (Eve Online) but not much.
Something ratcheted up my usage to nearly twice that (I did buy one game off Steam for digital delivery), which still would have been perfectly reasonable given the $75.00/mo plan I chose — that’s double what most people pay for unlimited in the lower 48 states. I only moved to this plan because their $135/mo bundle plan wasn’t affordable due to the required overpriced digital phone + taxes.
I tried calling their customer service and just got the company line about how expensive it was to provide their service, and I must have an open Wi-Fi router or “downloaded” too many YouTube videos, iTunes, or other content. He also stressed five or six times lots of customers go over their limits thanks to Netflix streaming and you really can’t use it with GCI Internet service.
To date I’ve never gotten a straight story from them on how this is managed, or from their marketing material which never mentioned overage until recently, or their reps that used to say you’d get a phone call to warn you if you went over their limits. The rep I spoke to most recently claims you’re supposed to call them daily or every other day – or login to a special portal online to monitor usage.
Either way this company has no sense of customer service, nor does it operate in the interest of Alaskan consumers that are cut off from the lower 48 and need reliable and affordable Internet services.
Stop the Cap! recommends making a copy of David Morris’ comments and notifying GCI you are not paying their overage fees because they are “obviously in error,” at least according to the company’s own spokesman. Then get on the line with the State of Alaska’s Consumer Protection Unit and the Better Business Bureau and demand your overlimit fees be credited or refunded. We’ve even got the complaint form started for you. GCI values its A+ Better Business Bureau rating, so chances are very good they’ll take care of you to satisfactorily close the complaint.
GCI’s claims that with Internet usage limits, the company can deliver its customers faster speeds. But Stop the Cap! argues those speeds are ultimately useless when GCI allows you to use as little as 3 percent of your service before those overlimit fees kick in.
A Broadband Reports reader ran the numbers before speed upgrades made them even worse:
| Yes, GCI is overcharging customers and they have been on their unbundled tiers for a very long time. Now GCI wants to overcharge the rest by setting limits on ultimate package tiers that previously were labeled as “unlimited downloads”. I thought I’d post the more revealing information about how GCI is ripping off residential customers.As an academic argument let’s compare what data transfer is possible vs. what GCI now expects customers to use on its [formerly] “unlimited downloads” tiers.
1 Mbit = 1,000,000 bits 1,000,000 bps * 60 = 60,000,000 bpm Now that we have a baseline measure of the total data transfer possible from a 1Mbps line PER DAY, let’s convert bits to bytes and gigabytes. 8 bits = 1 byte Now let’s convert this to gigabytes 1,000,000,000 bytes = 1GB This means that 10.8GB of data transfer is possible with a 1Mbps connection operating 24/7 PER DAY. Ultimate package speed tiers. (Total Throughput possible PER DAY) (Total Throughput possible PER MONTH) 4Mbps = 43.2 * 30 = 1296 GB = 1.296 TB Now this is what GCI expects its customers to use. GCI expected utilization factor (actual/possible usage) It should be no surprise that as technology continues to develop, the true costs of broadband have continued to fall. Given the true cost of bandwidth today, GCI’s forced bundling, and the price it’s asking this is pathetic. Some might choose to ignore it or want to be a water carrier for GCI and similar ISPs, but advertising a service and expecting less than 3% usage is overbilling. It’s overcharging and also manipulative because the general population doesn’t understand it and can be easily duped into believing whatever they’re told to believe by an ISP. |
Do you even try to be impartial? The article (not exceptionally well done by ADN) is in context of the “Unlimited” Xtreme plans. The customer example you have posted is of a customer NOT on one of those plans. GCI has always had usage based plans – only if you had the Ultimate Package could you get their unlimited plans.
So yes this customer got billed for usage because they SIGNED UP for a usage based plan.
This is very obvious from your screen shot above where there is no billing for additional services required for the “Unlimited” plans.
The biggest point is about how EXPENSIVE this is. Data caps are not a way to manage a network. The only thing they are designed to do is to keep people off of the network.
…and further pad the profits of an already wildly lucrative service. They aren’t even delivering a tangible product.
GCI stopped offering unlimited plans sometime ago on ALL plans. Apparently you’re just as mininformed as their executive quoted as saying they haven’t charged anybody for overages… but then seeing how they didn’t bother to properly notify anybody before slamming hundred dollar overage fee’s, I can understand why you might have missed the memo. Did you even read any of the 30+ pages of user comments on the ADN article? None of the GCI customers have a clue whats going on, what the policies are, or how the plans have changed several times as nobody can get a straight answer..… Read more »
This is uncalled for and unprofessional!
GCI is a monolopy up here and this kind of action needs to be addressed. For all the crap the government does that we don’t want where are they for this?
I hate that these companies don’t want to spend the money to bring internet in Alaska up to par with the rest of the nation or even with 2nd world nations that have internet that makes ours look like dial-up.
Hooked up ACS today and will be canceling GCI tomorrow.
After being a customer for 5 years and paying $150-200 every month just to have unlimited downloads, I’m done.
Congrats Jon. By the way ACS has NO problems whatsoever with you streaming video or using the service to it’s full extent, the Sales rep I talked to in person was very upfront about that and how many staff and customers use Netflix streaming.
She also said there’s been a tremendous increase in signups since people started getting these bills and the terms being changed.
My service should be swapped over shortly as well, it’ll be nice to actually be able to USE the internet again.
I pay GCI a total of around $250 a month so I can have the highest speed internet available, before they start robbing me for overage. I dont even watch the cable TV, all my TV is watched via internet. Now I am getting hit month after month with outrageous overage charges. I dont even use the cable or phone but am forced to pay for it if I want the highest speed internet. A decent HD movie will use anywhere from 5 to 8 gigs of bandwidth on average, which is extremely higher than what these con-artist have said… Read more »
Hey Josh.
You can switch over to ACS’s 3Mbit Package (True 3Mbit, not GCI’s 8Mbit which runs at 3-5Mbit during primetime) which includes a local phone line similiar to GCI’s package for about $109/mo. That’s a true unlimited package. Then tack on Netflix for $9/mo if you want, no overages. If you’ve got decent line of sight you could even add a DISH or DirecTV and still end up paying less than your GCI deal not including all the overages they’re reaming you with.
Scott, is the ACS internet speed sufficient for watching youtube and playing online games? Just wondering, my family has had it up “to here” with GCI.
I’ve been with ACS for about 6 months now and have no troubles watching youtube videos at all
With games you need good latency which is often referred to by gamers as their ping, and yes ACS is still playable. Our problem is generally being in Alaska regardless of internet provider due to the distance between routers hitting Seattle or California.
You can watch good quality Netflix video without any stuttering.
720p YouTube you need to let buffer, but I had to do that on GCI too during primetime, any of the other quality settings are fine.