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Has anyone ever been caught tethering AT&T's 3G connction?
- Thread starter FoxMcWeezer
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Think of it this way, safari on your tethered macbook is going to use the same amount of data as safari on your iPhone. So as long as you are not going over your 5GB soft-cap, AT&T will not check your usage because it would take way to much work for an employee to go through everyones data usage, line by line, for anomalies.
I've been caught
I was off AT&T's network visiting my mother and I tethered by connection quite a bit. So much so that I got an email from AT&T saying I was using "excessive amount of off network data" and in violation of the terms of my agreement. Apparently you are only allowed 100MB per day if you're off their network. Nothing happened however. I stopped using it and didn't get charged anything.
I was off AT&T's network visiting my mother and I tethered by connection quite a bit. So much so that I got an email from AT&T saying I was using "excessive amount of off network data" and in violation of the terms of my agreement. Apparently you are only allowed 100MB per day if you're off their network. Nothing happened however. I stopped using it and didn't get charged anything.
Off network is not tethering. Off network just means you were roaming outside AT&T owned/operated cell towers.
On network, it's very unlikely for you to be caught.
There is no soft cap. End of story.
You were caught off network. This has nothing to do with tethering.
Pattern recognition - they would simply id excessive usage and patterns automatically. It's probably not wort hteh trouble unless someone really abuses it, though.
As for the off network usage mentioned above, ATT probably pays the provider so they want to limit the costs. Way back when, if you used to much "free roaming" they'd drop you as well. It was one way to get out of a contract with no fees.
They still do this. I spent a couple of weeks in a "partner" area two summers ago, and I got a text message warning that more than half of my usage had been off-network for that month and threatening to drop me if it continued. They changed my network ID to off-network when I wasn't on the AT&T network after that, too.
I got caught tethering about two months ago. The AT&T police knocked on my door, stormed in and stomped my iphone and laptop into the ground and said if it happened again that next time it would be my head. I recommend not tethering if you value your life.
There is no way (other than indepth packet analysis) for the carrier to differentiate data sent from the iphone compared to a PC/Mac. The only thing AT&T can do is identify excessive usage and warn you due to fair usage policy. Phone salesman WILL try to scare you off simply because they can make money out of you. It simply comes down to just being sensible with your usage and you'll be fine.
OP here. I'm on T-Mobile and I recently canceled the Internet service at my house. My only source of Internet at home was tethering my Edge Internet off my iPhone. It was over 2GB in a week.
Man, could you imagine downloading 2GB over EDGE. I would ****ing kill myself.
i have verizon turbo speed at my house. fastest internet verizon provides. when i tether with at&t's 3g network i freak out. imagine tethering with tmobiles 2g network, god you load like 2 pages in a whole day. lol.
Iv used 5 GB plus for the last 3 months ... Nothing has changed on my bill... But I have wifi at home now woo hoo so that should drop back to nothing again.
Ok, a tad bit off topic, but I upgraded my phone back a few years ago when 3G came out so I could tether. In upgrading, the dumba$$ AT&T guy put the non-unlimited data plan on my account instead of the unlimited plan that I had up to that point.
Got a bill the next month for over $2000. Thought it was a joke... big time typo on their part. I paid my normal monthly amount figuring it would be corrected in the next bill. Next bill: over $32,000... thats right! Over $35,000 those idiots tried to get out of me for 2 months of data. I still have the bill in storage at my parents. I look at it about once a year... still makes my butt pucker!
Before you ask, I had to download huge data files every night for research I use to do. Not p0rn!
Even with copies of all the paperwork from the upgrade, they still tried to make me pay up. Took 1.5 years, but they finally acknowledged that the mistake was theirs and cleared the charges. Idiots!
I know it's not "getting caught", but it was something I wouldn't believe if it hadn't happened to me. Make sure you've got unlimited data on whatever phone you tether with
Got a bill the next month for over $2000. Thought it was a joke... big time typo on their part. I paid my normal monthly amount figuring it would be corrected in the next bill. Next bill: over $32,000... thats right! Over $35,000 those idiots tried to get out of me for 2 months of data. I still have the bill in storage at my parents. I look at it about once a year... still makes my butt pucker!
Before you ask, I had to download huge data files every night for research I use to do. Not p0rn!
Even with copies of all the paperwork from the upgrade, they still tried to make me pay up. Took 1.5 years, but they finally acknowledged that the mistake was theirs and cleared the charges. Idiots!
I know it's not "getting caught", but it was something I wouldn't believe if it hadn't happened to me. Make sure you've got unlimited data on whatever phone you tether with
ive been using my phone's 3g connection as my internet connection at home (average about 100-120 kb/sec download)
I've been averaging about 500mb-1.2gb a day for several months
so just keep it within limits = no suspicion
i would kill myself if i had to use edge connection speeds, that's like 10-15 kb/sec
I've been averaging about 500mb-1.2gb a day for several months
so just keep it within limits = no suspicion
i would kill myself if i had to use edge connection speeds, that's like 10-15 kb/sec
...and this is why you always call in when there's a problem on your bill. For better or worse AT&T deals with about 80 million bills each month... they're generally perfectly happy to fix any fook ups, but they aren't even gonna look at your account unless you ask them to.
It is not nearly that difficult for AT&T to be able to differentiate what kind of device something is originating from unless you are doing some sort of spoofing.
+1
the url header gives away enough info to tell your not on an iphone. And that is hardly 'in-depth'