Swisscom info and facts
Berne, 27 May 2014
After just two years since its launch, the infinity tarif and the worry-free experience it offers have already convinced more than 1.8 million Swisscom customers. They appreciate the fact that their bill is the same every month and they do not need to worry about how many minutes they are using. If, however, we are led to suspect that a customer’s usage is excessive or abusive, we will contact the customer in question by text message or in person. The vast majority of our customers, though, will never come in contact with this Fair Usage Policy (FUP). Over the course of any given year, we only contact one in a thousand customers
If a customer uses his or her subscription for personal purposes and for mobile services, there is no defined limit. infinity customers tendto make calls totalling an average of three and a half hours per month. If then, for instance, a customer uses more than 50 or 100 times that in a month, we would consider that unusual. In such a scenario, it may be possible that this customer is using the mobile network for a permanent connection or our services for purposes other than intended, for example to resell them. We will, in such a case, contact the customer and alert him or her to the excessive usage. So far, we have virtually always been able to agree on a solution, such as changing the customer’s subscription to one that is more appropriate to his or her specific needs or offering him or her a landline solution.
It is not merelythe number of minutes used that is relevant, but more generally the pattern of use; i.e. whether the mobile network is being used for a permanent, fixed application such as video monitoring or SMS/MMS spamming. That is why we seek to contact the customersin question.
The NATEL infinity subscription is intended for normal, personal use. Swisscom reserves the right to cancel or restrict service provision or take other measures at any time,if usage deviates substantially from ordinary levels or there are indications that the SIM card is being used for special purposes (e.g. monitoring applications, machine-to-machine, direct dial-in or permanent connections).
Despite the steady expansion of the mobile network, its capacity is not infinite. Swisscom wants to guarantee every customer network availability. For this to be possible within a shared medium, Swisscom reserves the right to contact customers if it detects or suspects excessive or abusive usage. The motivation behind Swisscom’s actions is primarily one of fairness towards our customers, as it is he only way we can ensure availability and that network quality remains consistently high for all customers.
Our Fair Usage Policy has been in place since the launch of NATEL infinity and has always been communicated in an open and transparent manner via various channels (www.swisscom.ch/fup). The reason it is little known is because only very few customers are ever directly affected by it.