Check your iiNet account usage this morning. It should put a smile on your dial.
Turns out that on April 1, rather than try and fool all of its customers by being mean or just outright dumb like some people online, iiNet really did people a favour on April Fool’s.
The prank initially started as a “fault” in its data measurement system:
Our systems are currently unable to measure data usage from fixed line broadband connections.
— iiNet (@iiNet) March 31, 2013
We’re working hard to resolve this issue. We anticipate the fault will be resolved by 11.59pm tonight.
— iiNet (@iiNet) March 31, 2013
I see what you did there, iiNet.
Turns out that after the April Fool’s Day dust settled, people checking their accounts have found that the ISP was, in-fact, telling the truth. Not about the system fault, mind, but about the fact that it made everything its users browsed or downloaded that day count as “Freezone” content, which doesn’t affect your monthly usage cap.
Here’s a graph from an iiNet customer on Reddit:
Image: alitadark
iiNet’s chief technology officer, John Linday, told us today that it was all legit, and that nobody was charged for data from a fixed connection on April 1:
Yes @lukehopewell , @iiNet did give free traffic on April 1st. We deliberately rated everything as Freezone.
— John Lindsay (@bigjsl) April 4, 2013
Good work, iiNet. [Reddit]