Boost Mobile's $50 Unlimited Plan is a scam

Prepaid unlimited plans are getting popular in today's hard economic times. Boost Mobile offers a $50 all-you-can-eat montly plan that seems to be better than it's fellow Sprint-owned rival Virgin Mobile's $50 voice-only unlimited plan... until you read Boost's fine print:

UNLIMITED USE DOES NOT MEAN UNREASONABLE USE. To ensure that all customers have access to reliable services provided at a reasonable cost, you may not use our service in a manner that interferes with another Boost Mobile customer's use of our service or disproportionally impacts Boost Mobile's network resources. Prohibited Uses: Boost Monthly Unlimited services are provided solely for live dialogue between, and initiated by, two individuals for personal use and as otherwise described in this policy. Unlimited voice services may not be used for any other purposes, including, but not limited to, conference calling, monitoring services, data transmissions, transmission of broadcasts, transmission of recorded material, interconnection to other networks, telemarketing, autodialed calls, other commercial uses, or other connections that do not consist of uninterrupted live dialogue between two individuals. In addition, Boost Mobile services may not be used to send or receive unusually high numbers of messages or engage in atypical web usage behaviors. We will presume you are engaging in a Prohibited Use, in violation of these terms and conditions, if you are placing an abnormally high numbers of calls, or repeatedly placing calls of unusually long duration (as compared to other customers on the same service plans), or if your usage is harmful or disruptive to Boost Mobile's systems or services. If we determine, at our sole discretion, that you are using an unlimited service in violation of the Boost Mobile General Terms and Conditions of Service, the Monthly Unlimited Terms of Service, or in any other manner that we deem to be unreasonable or excessive, then we may terminate individual calls, or, after providing notice to you, terminate your service, decline to renew your services, or offer you a different service plan with no unlimited usage components.

Doesn't sound so "Unlimited" to me.
Discuss.

I know you are not lying because I was with boost and did the $50 plan. There texting sucks as well...people receive the messages later than they are suppose too. Fawk you Boost XD.

Basically, they don't want you to leave a phone constantly on in a call in an attempt to monitor someone (by leaving it hidden in their house, for example), or to let it autodial random numbers for advertisements. They probably can't easily prove that you're doing either of those things, so they're reserving the right to cut it off without proof on those grounds. I doubt they'd cut you off during normal, human use of a phone.

^ That.

Also, I think it's to cover themselves should something like AT&T's unlimited fiasco happen where AT&T wasn't prepared for just how much people would be using their unlimited plans and as a result, their entire network was negatively affected on account of the 2-3% of their customers streaming data constantly and/or using their phone's connection for their internet connection constantly.

I ended up going with Virgin Mobile after seeing this clause in the fine print with Boost.
It's $50 for unlimited talking plus $10 for unlimited texting and for another $10 you get 50 MB of data. That's $70 which is comparable to Sprint's $70 Totally Unlimited contract plan (plus Virgin is on the Srpint network anyway). Sure it's $10-20 more than Boost's plan depening if you want the data pack or not but at least Virgin doesn't have that B.S. clause like Boost does.
And they have the Texter's Delight plan which is $20 for unlimited texting and 10 cents per voice minute which is good for people who text alot and seldom using the phone for talking.

Illekn said:

That is why I don't have boost. MetroPCS has unlimited everything(including web) for only $45... and they don't give a hoot if you call someone and talk to them for whole month between your bills. Imho, Boost sucks, go metro

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Metro has terrible coverage imo I had them for awhile they're okay for being a low-end regional provider but not as good as Virgin or even Boost.

Every phone company has some clause in their unlimited plan like the thing you mentioned, because otherwise, it would cripple the network. Infrastructure needs to improve as data plans get more generous. While texting in Boost is crappy (I've had my phone for almost a year and the vast majority of problems are gone), it's so much better than any other prepaid plan, so it's worth it overall. Unlike with MetroPCS, I have never been to any part of the country where I don't get full bars.

I'll stick with my Net10 service. It works for me and suits my needs. They have a web browser, texting, etc...the only thing you have to keep an eye on is how many minutes you have left. I don't use my cell phone often, so this isn't a problem.

linkinpark187 said:

I'll stick with my Net10 service. It works for me and suits my needs. They have a web browser, texting, etc...the only thing you have to keep an eye on is how many minutes you have left. I don't use my cell phone often, so this isn't a problem.

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You know Net10 also has a $50 Unlimited Plan, right?

Yeah, but I'm not going to pay $50 for a service that I don't really need. I don't use it enough to even have a reason to need an unlimited service. I might go through my 300 minutes in the 2-3 month time frame that they give you. I just don't use it enough to justify spending $50 that could be used for gas in my car. But that's just my needs.

linkinpark187 said:

Yeah, but I'm not going to pay $50 for a service that I don't really need. I don't use it enough to even have a reason to need an unlimited service. I might go through my 300 minutes in the 2-3 month time frame that they give you. I just don't use it enough to justify spending $50 that could be used for gas in my car. But that's just my needs.

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Which phone do you have? I'm considering switching to Net10 and am trying to see how that full QWERTY phone they have is.