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AT&T Cracking Down on Unauthorized Tethering
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Mad Mac Maniac
macrumors 601
Yup I guess this is relevant again. It'll be interesting to see how this pans out...
With the latest announcement, I was wondering if they were stepping up what they have been doing or simply finally actually moving the people who were warned months ago. If its the latter, it seems like much ado about nothing, or at least about no new info.
I'm no legal expert but isn't this legal grounds to cancel your contract with AT&T without paying fees?
No. AT&T charging you for the service you consume is not grounds to void the contract.
Contract law would be pretty weak otherwise.
Whenever any contract is ammended or modified in any way, both parties have the right to agree or disagree to it. And if a party disagree, it has the right to cancel the contract without paying early termination fees.
Just ask a lawyer...
TOS modifications
Everyone seems hung up on whether or not tethering is unauthorized based on the CURRENT TOS online. I signed a TOS back in 2005. Anyone out there know how to find older copies of their TOS, because they can change their existing one all they want for new customers, but those changes are not binding to existing customers. Find your old contracts, and post here how it compares to the 6.2 restrictions that everyone is whining about
Everyone seems hung up on whether or not tethering is unauthorized based on the CURRENT TOS online. I signed a TOS back in 2005. Anyone out there know how to find older copies of their TOS, because they can change their existing one all they want for new customers, but those changes are not binding to existing customers. Find your old contracts, and post here how it compares to the 6.2 restrictions that everyone is whining about
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"The only people who iphones crying about this are the people trying to cheat the system."
"Grey area as you are violating the contract to begin with and they have a right to switch you at that point."
"They sold a service and clearly defined the rules to use it. Now they want to ensure that the rules are being followed (to the benefit of users who are following the rules in the form of less network congestion)."
These are all statements by people under the CURRENT TOS who are unhappy with those who got onboard with an old TOS that offerred unlimited data and did not have tethering restrictions.
Quit crying that you can't get the same good contract we got, and stop implying that we are cheating the system because what we dot violates YOUR TOS.
Please stop referencing the online TOS or current restrictions for your sanctimonious condemnation of people who simply want AT&T to honor their existing contracts with old customers. If what we are doing is a violation of our existing contract, then why the need to have us sign a NEW contract/plan that forbids what our old contract did not?
Show me the words illegal or unauthorized or violation in ANY of the communication that AT&T is sending it's existing customers. They don't exist. They are simply trying to bully people into abandoning a contract they no longer wish to honor,,,,,, and getting a LOT of support on forums like this from people who are unhappy they can't get in on the old plans. If you are not on the old plan, and don't plan to violate your NEW AND IMPROVED TOS that restricts tethering, then you really have no reason to be posting your jealous rants here.
UNLIMITED data does NOT imply unlimited bandwidth as you jealous people would complain about. My unlimited data plan has the exact same bandwidth as your new and improved plans (slow, based on time of the day, location, etc.)
"Grey area as you are violating the contract to begin with and they have a right to switch you at that point."
"They sold a service and clearly defined the rules to use it. Now they want to ensure that the rules are being followed (to the benefit of users who are following the rules in the form of less network congestion)."
These are all statements by people under the CURRENT TOS who are unhappy with those who got onboard with an old TOS that offerred unlimited data and did not have tethering restrictions.
Quit crying that you can't get the same good contract we got, and stop implying that we are cheating the system because what we dot violates YOUR TOS.
Please stop referencing the online TOS or current restrictions for your sanctimonious condemnation of people who simply want AT&T to honor their existing contracts with old customers. If what we are doing is a violation of our existing contract, then why the need to have us sign a NEW contract/plan that forbids what our old contract did not?
Show me the words illegal or unauthorized or violation in ANY of the communication that AT&T is sending it's existing customers. They don't exist. They are simply trying to bully people into abandoning a contract they no longer wish to honor,,,,,, and getting a LOT of support on forums like this from people who are unhappy they can't get in on the old plans. If you are not on the old plan, and don't plan to violate your NEW AND IMPROVED TOS that restricts tethering, then you really have no reason to be posting your jealous rants here.
UNLIMITED data does NOT imply unlimited bandwidth as you jealous people would complain about. My unlimited data plan has the exact same bandwidth as your new and improved plans (slow, based on time of the day, location, etc.)
You signed back in 2005, but when did your contract expire? Whenever you renew, upgrade, etc..., you sign the new TOS along with all it's wonderfulness. And if you are just on a month to month basis, the original contract only said the terms were valid during the binding period. Meaning if you're on a month to month basis, terms, pricing, and anything else is subject to change.
Do you know what the word renewal means? The contract was "fulfilled" at the end of the year and has a clause allowing renewal of the existing contract. I have never had to review or sign a new TOS and I have never upgraded. When a contract changes, both parties have to sign a new contract, if this doesn't happen, the existing contract remains in place (even when RENEWED).
AT&T is not enforcing an existing contract as they would lead people to believe, they are bullying people into changing to a new more restrictive (and profitable) contract. The letters they send out say they are "asking" users that do not have an existing tethering plan to change to that plan and are interpreting non-response as authorization to do this. I called them, said I don't want my data-plan changed, and they backed down. They also refused to comment when I asked them to show me in my existing contract where I was doing anything unauthorized. They simply keep referring me to the online TOS and informed me that it hasn't changed since I signed mine in 2005 (I guess they take me for an idiot). WHAT company has a TOS that hasn't changed in 6 years.
You are correct that our contract allows either party to terminate the agreement (as per the ORIGINAL TOS), but they are reluctant to do that knowing that it could cost them a customer. They feel they have a better chance of keeping a customer if they can get them to VOLUNTARILY change to their new more profitable (for them) contracts.
So here is what will happen. A renewed contract is still a valid contract, and for those who continue to tether (legally) but refuse to transfer to the new plans (before their existing contract is fulfilled), AT&T will simply refuse to renew those contracts when the time comes and then you can do your little happy dance thinking it has validated all the inaccuracies in your whining. I don't mind whining, I just wish you would be truthful in what you whine about, we got something on sale and you don't think you we should be able to keep something you can't get on sale now. That's what you are unhappy about.
AT&T is not enforcing an existing contract as they would lead people to believe, they are bullying people into changing to a new more restrictive (and profitable) contract. The letters they send out say they are "asking" users that do not have an existing tethering plan to change to that plan and are interpreting non-response as authorization to do this. I called them, said I don't want my data-plan changed, and they backed down. They also refused to comment when I asked them to show me in my existing contract where I was doing anything unauthorized. They simply keep referring me to the online TOS and informed me that it hasn't changed since I signed mine in 2005 (I guess they take me for an idiot). WHAT company has a TOS that hasn't changed in 6 years.
You are correct that our contract allows either party to terminate the agreement (as per the ORIGINAL TOS), but they are reluctant to do that knowing that it could cost them a customer. They feel they have a better chance of keeping a customer if they can get them to VOLUNTARILY change to their new more profitable (for them) contracts.
So here is what will happen. A renewed contract is still a valid contract, and for those who continue to tether (legally) but refuse to transfer to the new plans (before their existing contract is fulfilled), AT&T will simply refuse to renew those contracts when the time comes and then you can do your little happy dance thinking it has validated all the inaccuracies in your whining. I don't mind whining, I just wish you would be truthful in what you whine about, we got something on sale and you don't think you we should be able to keep something you can't get on sale now. That's what you are unhappy about.
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I know. I've have not received one of these message as I only tether when really need be but I should ha e stuc with 4.1. Probably going to downgrade. I have no idea why I upgraded to 4.3.x
I've been reading over this thread for a few minutes, and I feel the point I agree with most begs to be reiterated.
I have my unlimited data plan grandfathered to me by Verizon for my iPhone 4. I play by the rules and don't jailbreak it (mainly because of my dev iOS 5), and therefore I don't try to cheat Verizon. Granted, I did do that when I had my HTC Incredible I rooted, but back then I didn't understand that I could potentially be punished by my carrier for such an action.
Again, it's been said in here, but you agreed to this service. Chances are, if you don't like it, pulling out now and paying the ETF will benefit you more in the long run if you truly think you've been wronged. At the end of the day, Verizon is trying to make a profit, which isn't such an evil thing. The market closed the other day, and APPL was the most profitable stock on the market. I don't see you fanboys yelling and calling Apple evil.
I think it's safe to wager that the people who jailbreak their phones and tether for free are an extremely small minority, and in the sense of running a business, you're not the kind of minority whose best wishes need to be taken into account. You are doing something that Apple has rather quietly taken a stance against, and doing something that breaks your service contract, respectively. You can't expect fair treatment.
I'm all for freedom of the things you pay for. However, if you break the rules you live with the consequences. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time, if you will.
I have my unlimited data plan grandfathered to me by Verizon for my iPhone 4. I play by the rules and don't jailbreak it (mainly because of my dev iOS 5), and therefore I don't try to cheat Verizon. Granted, I did do that when I had my HTC Incredible I rooted, but back then I didn't understand that I could potentially be punished by my carrier for such an action.
Again, it's been said in here, but you agreed to this service. Chances are, if you don't like it, pulling out now and paying the ETF will benefit you more in the long run if you truly think you've been wronged. At the end of the day, Verizon is trying to make a profit, which isn't such an evil thing. The market closed the other day, and APPL was the most profitable stock on the market. I don't see you fanboys yelling and calling Apple evil.
I think it's safe to wager that the people who jailbreak their phones and tether for free are an extremely small minority, and in the sense of running a business, you're not the kind of minority whose best wishes need to be taken into account. You are doing something that Apple has rather quietly taken a stance against, and doing something that breaks your service contract, respectively. You can't expect fair treatment.
I'm all for freedom of the things you pay for. However, if you break the rules you live with the consequences. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time, if you will.
I honestly don't think that AT&T would have to go to these measures if they had given people the option to buy an unlimited tethering add-on. Verizon offers that option for it's 4G phones & I've actually seen more people say that they took it & are happy for it. But, AT&T's network couldn't handle the strain of all of those customers using that kind of data, so they want to cripple everyone on it.
Yeah, I just wanted to clarify. I assume they don't really care about illegal tethering, they just want to get paid per GB (and to kill off more unlimited plans).
keep ooooon swingin buddy
It's been a week since enough people saw this to post about it. Longer than that since AT&T took notice of it and started to address it. 1 week, 5 months...won't matter. Revisit this thread at the end of the year, see if people aren't still tethering with miwi, etc with no problem. This thread will be more of a joke then it already is probably just a few months from now...
"it's not gonna happen to me" mentality?....mmmm kinda. More like "it's not going to happen to a significan't number of people to make a dent in stopping this, and I could care less if it does happen to me."
Just wanted to revisit this topic 1yr later.
You can thank people like this for the throttle.
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145GB this month, warning and still tethering....
AT&T can eat a male private part!
500Gbs this year
Bet you didn't download more than 3gb this month! LOL
I haven't been able to get handylight to work in recent versions of ios. It took a little messing around to get it to work with a linux netbook but it used to work. Every so often I'll try and get it to work again. In an ideal situation I'd have handylight setup on my iphone, share the connection from netbook, and then my ipad connects to the netbook so I could use my ipad for the 2 times I'm at a hotel without internet.
i haven't needed to, I stopped using data like crazy as of 6 months ago when I got fiber optic
Woah, crazy that I did this at the same time and nothing actually prompted me to do it...
I'm not sure why this is relevant again yet though... I'll read back on the thread and see what has been happening, but as far as my personal situation, you can HOLD DAT lol. Been tethering regularly with no probs, so my "it won't happen to me & could care less if it does" mentality hasn't been a problem so far
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hmmm, still not seeing much real news about any follow up on this 'crackdown' since the argument originally started. Googling for various combinations of at&t, unauthorized tethering, swtiching plans etc, I don't see any results with a date later than around august 2011. How did this exactly become relevant again? is this another case of a "crackdown" were only a small number of people were hit, or is there finally some real news here... cuz everything I'm seeing looks to me like I called this one exactly how it turned out... much ado about nothing, most people continuing to do what they do, and a year later no big outrage over massive 'automatic' plan switches, or sweeping lawsuits against people for this nefarious criminal activity....
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Ah, so I see a few of the threads here at least that refer to another 'crackdown' coming. I'm not sure yet how it's any different than the original one (yet), we have yet to see how many people actually get switched.
It seems like they want to crack down more due to usage than tethering per se.... Which is maybe why I've never had a problem, I don't think I use that much data.
Oh well, i'm moving to a gnex anyway since my job now involves working with the android platform...so... new carrier, new anauthorized tethering solution... not too worried for now at least.
It seems like they want to crack down more due to usage than tethering per se.... Which is maybe why I've never had a problem, I don't think I use that much data.
Oh well, i'm moving to a gnex anyway since my job now involves working with the android platform...so... new carrier, new anauthorized tethering solution... not too worried for now at least.