Brazil surprises the world again with the idea of limited internet.

  While all the countries are taking one step forward, Brazil is taking two steps back.

  On April 18th Anatel's presidente João Rezende comunicated that the age of "unlimited" internet access is coming to an end. This proposition was already being discussed between all the major telecomunication companies, and this is already a thing on mobile services.

  João Rezende says:"We can't work knowing that the users will have an unlimited service with no cost". He explains that there is no place in the internet for everyone and also he pinned part of the blame  on gamers, saying that they consume other people's internet.
  The reason for this limit (as stated by Renato Pontual the regional director for Vivo Nordeste) is that when imposed it will lower the costs for users that don't consume a lot of their bandwidth wich are right now being charged the same price as the "High Users" (if both are paying for the same package) or people that just use more than them. Some people disagree with that reasoning saying that when the limit is surpassed (wich according to them is not a difficult thing to happen) the service is going to get much worse and more expensive than the previous Unlimited Plans and basically damage the other side of the spectrum, the "High Users".

  Because of the brazilian population and all the online riots, Anatel changed it's mind and postponed the measure to 2017. On this wednesday (May 4th), João Rezende was called up by the consumer protection committe of the parliament to clarify the intentions of the telecomunication companies in ending the unlimited internet plans. Furthermore Anatel has given more details on the issue saying that a preemptive warning must be issued by every telecomunications commpany before the internet limit is breached, otherwise the limit is considered to not have been surpassed.

                                                                              Anatel's president João Rezende

  It is also important to report that not the entirety of the population seems to be against this measure, some say that it is acceptable and people are just overreacting, the main analogy they make is that if you strike a deal with someone saying you will provide them with 200 oranges a month for a monthly fee and they go and consume 300 oranges, would you charge them the same monthly fee? The same can be applied to the internet providers, it's unfair for them. The problem with that analogy lies within the contract of stationary internet plans, some of those contracts do not state a limit of data to be used therefore by virtue of the their own contract, internet providers are not being treated unfairly.

  To provide so more insight as to why people seem som angered by this limitation: The main gripe is with, of course, the limit itself, people want the best possible access to the biggest type of media in actuality, another big complaint is that the service provided isn't even that good to begin with, customer support is nearly unaccessible and the prices are already high enough, the proposition only serves to fill with even more money the pockets of directors and managers from the major telecomunication companies. However the depth of the complications the limit would couse only seems to increase, limiting user access inevitably lowers traffic on all web pages, people that depend on their sites ad revenue to survive will be severely affected by tha limitation, apps and softwares that constantly use bandwidth will also have to be either updated or blocked by users.

 How does it work?

     Simple, currently people pay for internet access at a specific speed of their choice, as long as the monthly fee is paid, the access remains, regardless of how much data is consumed (That is not true to all internet services as some of them already have a limit stated in their contracts) what João Rezende states is that the price per month should change according to how much data is consumed, plans would state a specific limit to where the given speed and price would be valid, surpassing that limit would mean that the speed and cost stated in the contract would not be the one used for any further access, instead upon surpassing the limit the speed would fall or the cost would  rise (They aren't both mutually exclusive).

    It is also important to remind that this explanation is only valid to stationary internet services not mobile internet services, as the latter already have predetermined data usage limits on their plan.



By: Vinícius Alves, Joaquim Lucena and Augusto Varella