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The Belgian Institute for Postal Services and Telecommunications has announced minimum, monthly data volumes for providers that fair use policies and use ‘unlimited’ bundles. With mobile, this is 300GB per month, with fixed 3TB.
The Institute says with the new guidelines want to create clarity about ‘unlimited surfing’. Subscribers of ‘unlimited mobile internet’ in particular would quickly run into the limits of fups, after which the internet speed would be reduced. Although BIPT understands that the FUPs are necessary to guarantee the quality of the network, the regulator believes that providers may only call a subscription unlimited if ‘the vast majority of customers’ can use the subscription without a speed limit.
With fixed internet, this fup is now between 500GB and 3TB, depending on the provider. Less than two percent of customers would exceed the fixed internet fup. With mobile plans, where fups of between 20GB and 40GB apply, more than ten percent of all customers would exceed the fup.
BIPT is now setting guidelines to reduce these exceedances, mainly due to the exceeding of those mobile fups. For fixed internet the fup is set at 3TB and for mobile internet at 300GB. That 3TB would be in line with what most providers now use. It is not clear how the institute obtained 300GB. Well says BIPT take this into account with further growth in the mobile segment and that ‘a very small number of customers’ exceed this. In addition, the market for mobile internet is said to be ‘still in full development’, which means that the ‘number of relevant observations is more limited’.
BIPT also says that if the fup is exceeded, access to the internet may not be blocked if there is ‘unlimited’ internet. Providers are also not allowed to charge customers extra costs, but reducing the speed is allowed. Fixed and mobile providers have six months to convert the guidelines into policy. BIPT also says that the mentioned values of 300GB and 3TB could increase if it turns out to be necessary.
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