WarrantyVoider
Android Enthusiast
You shouldn't lose your plan by rooting, but your plan's ToS might prohibit tethering or excess data usage. So make sure you understand the situation.
Technically, this phone has built-in tethering support and using that doesn't require root. However, the carrier has disabled that feature. To make a change to re-enable the feature requires some kind of superuser/root privilege. The simpler way to do this is by rooting. Once rooted, the steps outlined by HasH_BrowN should turn on tethering.
If under Settings->More..., you don't have options for tethering, then that feature is hidden. To get it to show, use Shortcut Master again. This time search for "ChameleonNodeMenu" and then "Launch" -> "Tethered Data" -> "Get". Change the value to 3 (for Tribute, 1=no tethering option, 2=wifi+bluetooth, 3=usb+wifi+bluetooth; other phones like Volt seem to be different) and save.
There is a harder way to do these changes outside of the Android system so that there would be no trace of any rooting attempt. This is complicated though. The method involves editing sqlite database files to change settings directly. I don't suppose anyone would prefer this route, so I won't go into it.
Without rooting, I think most people go with FoxFi/PdaNet+. I have no experience with this, but I've read it wouldn't work with some carriers and/or phones. Android distinguishes between on-device data and tethered data. Tethered data probably go through a different APN and the carrier can detect/block tethering use that way. There is a setting to disable this behavior. You need to issue a command with adb shell (maybe terminal emulator would work as well): "settings put global tether_dun_required 0". I don't think issuing this command requires root.
Technically speaking, the carrier can still detect tethering based on traffic. If that's a problem, the next step might be to use a VPN to encrypt data.
I hope this reply makes some sense. Good luck.
