Metfanant
Android Expert
The scenario was, you need a file on your laptop that is on the internet. Maybe a movie or video.
Scenario 1: You tether the phone to the laptop and the phone relays the file packets using a wifi tether app to the laptop. "Illegal"
Scenario 2: You download the file to the phone, then you connect the phone to the laptop and transfer the file to the laptop. "Illegal or not?"
It is the same result so I see gray areas. Early wired ISPs struggled with this dilema too. People would have one computer on dialup internet and then use ICS in windows. For a brief time the ISPs tried to make that not allowed and then realized that everyone and their router was doing it. They gave in to reason and started selling home gateways themselves.
Wireless providers haven't come around. Their $29 data plan costs them pennys in actual cost but just like the gps debacle and VZ nav, they will fleece what they can. It's a shame that Gingerbread is actually helping them go backwards in this respect. My fear is that google's delicious deserts are starting to spoil with the help of locked bootloaders, htc's RO partitions and kernals that "auto heal" themselves on boot.
No...you're missing the point...and based on your explanation don't understand how tethering actually works...
The data is not simply being passed through your phone to your computer like a USB connection...you are turning your phone into an access point to Verizon's network...allowing multiple devices to use data and burn through bandwidth...
The USB transfer uses no extra bandwidth on VZWs network...when you tether you are using extra bandwidth...your phone and whatever other devices are simultaneously accessing VZWs network and using their bandwidth...its not like your phone stops accessing data because your downloading on your PC...no sir...your phone still has a data connection...
If you download in your phone and move the file over USB how does that add strain to VZWs network??...it doesn't...and that it was makes it different and very far from the "same result" as you put it...
A family is walking on the train tracks and they don't see a train speeding up behind them. You can flick a switch to divert the train to a side track but it will run over an old man walking on that track. What do you do?
Same family, track and train but now you are standing on a bridge overhead with the old man. You can stop the train by pushing the man off the bridge onto the tracks. What do you do now?
Different, but the same outcome, hence the same.
It saddens me that your missing the point so badly there...
Put it this way...
2 scenarios...
1. I turn on my tether app...im getting a theoretical 100kb/s download speed...I have 3a other devices tethers to my phone...all three are downloading files and accessing data at th same time...
2. I have just my phone accessing data at that 100kb/s I download the files I need...then transfer them to my pother devices using USB...
Which scenario puts more strain on the network...1 device downloading...or 4 devices downloading at the same time??...easy answer...
Once the file is on my phone...the USB connection doesn't use Verizon's services at all...the strain is now removed from their network...
If you can't understand this then im just sorry...but this has already been talked about too much in this thread...if you want to discuss further you can PM or something...


