• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

AT&T tells customers using unauthorized tethering methods to pay up or stop

  • Thread starter Thread starter Deleted User
  • Start date Start date
D

Deleted User

Guest
I'm sure most people have heard about this by now. When will VZW follow suit?

AT&T letter getting sent out:

Dear XXXXXXXX,

We've noticed your service plan may need updating.


Many AT&T customers use their smartphones as a broadband connection for other devices, like laptops, netbooks or other smartphones
 
The Engadget article regarding this said that only iPhone owners have reported getting the message so far. Frankly, given the fact that Crapple is Crapple, I wouldn't be surprised if they incorporated some way of detecting unauthorized tethering in iOS 4.3.
 
It would be nice if everybody who has got this letter states how much they have used over the past 12 months... so people can get an idea...
 
Yes you should...and you should immediately lose your unlimited plan the moment you do

I think it's only fair that if you offer an unlimited plan, it really should be unlimited. Or at least the cap should be sky high.

Therefore, at least AT&T is being honest in doing away with their unlimited plan, in that it never really was unlimited.

At the same time, by doing away with unlimited, they also (IMO) did away with any excuse they had to charge for tethering. When AT&T had an unlimited plan, I think they had a plausible excuse to charge for tethering. Note that they had several different unlimited data plans, depending on the type of phone. This recognized the reality that different phones consumed different amounts of data. So they could claim that the plan was for unlimited phone data, and not for tethering.

Another reality that is (again IMO) slowly sinking in is that the new generation of smartphones consume as much data as a laptop. After all my phone runs the same OS as my laptop (eg Linux). (Nope I don't do Windows.) My phone runs a full internet browser just like my laptop. In fact, I can install the FireFox app for Android. Several browsers give you the full internet browsing experience on your phone.

So the difference between phone data and laptop data has almost completely disappeared.

Like I said earlier in the thread, I'm not entirely convinced that you should be able to tether with an unlimited data plan. But I think in the long run this is where we'll end up.
 
I'm not convinced that you should be able to tether if you have an unlimited data plan. (Also I'm not sure that you should not be able to either. After all unlimited means unlimited.)

In any event, in the following thread (and another one elsewhere)
http://androidforums.com/t/300228-t-begin-charging-iphone-users-who-tether.html
I argue that tethering should be allowed.

Would be nice. Have the Unlimited plan and was told that if I wanted to add tethering, I would have to switch OFF the unlimited plan.

Thanks, but no. If I need to work while out and have my Laptop, I'll stop in the nearest Denny's or McDonalds for free wifi.
 
Back
Top Bottom