While you are correct in principal, the reality is that AT&T is going to detect people who are tethering without paying and charge them for it regardless of wether or not any of us feel it's fair or enforceable.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
AT&T Cracking Down on Unauthorized Tethering
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
While you are correct in principal, the reality is that AT&T is going to detect people who are tethering without paying and charge them for it regardless of wether or not any of us feel it's fair or enforceable.
Because they have to pay for the bandwidth used by these 2%; and besides if they can get more money out of them and make them stop using so much bandwidth, why not?
I think they lie.
I don't think they know crap.. They are basing it on usage, and if you admit to them on the phone after your hate mail message. PLAY STUPID!!! Ask them when the last time you "tethered".... And to what device. What Mac address? If they can't answer.. Ask for someone who can.. Isnt it convenient that ATT did away with unlimited Internet, and I bet Allll of us with a hate mail are only us with unlimited Internet. I was told " if I tethered after march 27th I would be forced to a tethering plan to keep my unlimited internet" I could still have internet,, but on a lesser plan if I chose to.. It's just their way of phasing us out on a contract they have to oblige. I was told they knew when and to what device I linked to. So I played stupid and asked what ones?? I got no answer. Prove me wrong... Honestly besides IF they had the ability to monitor that, it's an infringement on our constitutional rights by monitoring "what we do" on our phone and with our internet without a valid warrant. They simply have no place to say anything other than " thank you for taking advantage of our offer for unlimited Internet"
I don't think they know crap.. They are basing it on usage, and if you admit to them on the phone after your hate mail message. PLAY STUPID!!! Ask them when the last time you "tethered".... And to what device. What Mac address? If they can't answer.. Ask for someone who can.. Isnt it convenient that ATT did away with unlimited Internet, and I bet Allll of us with a hate mail are only us with unlimited Internet. I was told " if I tethered after march 27th I would be forced to a tethering plan to keep my unlimited internet" I could still have internet,, but on a lesser plan if I chose to.. It's just their way of phasing us out on a contract they have to oblige. I was told they knew when and to what device I linked to. So I played stupid and asked what ones?? I got no answer. Prove me wrong... Honestly besides IF they had the ability to monitor that, it's an infringement on our constitutional rights by monitoring "what we do" on our phone and with our internet without a valid warrant. They simply have no place to say anything other than " thank you for taking advantage of our offer for unlimited Internet"
OMG May 2010 At&t said they had 15 million customers
if they lost 5 million to Verizon still thats 10 million
2% is 200,000 people abusing the Data per at&t, yeah they would care about 2%
not counting Android users who can and do tether like this ( My son does)
so 200,000 Iphone and ? 100,000 android maybe more................. A heck of lot "Abusers"
if you could just charge $10 each in fees thats 3 million in profit.......... think of what more they could charge?
I guess I should expect a text & email barrage then. If they are just targeting the heavy data users, I'm sure I'm on their radar. Thank you I Heart Radio, YouTube, StreetFire & Filer download/streaming apps for scaring AT&T so badly. 
As explained before not hard for AT&T to figure out if you are tethering. They can legally search your data packets abd they are not looking at the data you are sending/ receiving. They are just looking at the over head part of the packet and that is were the giveaway is and it is not something you can hide.
So if the abuse is 2% ( per At&t) and they have at least 10 million Iphone users ( 15 million 5/2010) then they are going to search through all 200,000 abusers
and then the Android abusers how many? guess at 90,000 more at least?
So 300,000 abusers is a lot to search though.............
Umm 300k is not that many to look threw. 15 million yes would be a lot to look threw but 300k relatively few and they have the computing power to do it. Just set a few servers to chug threw the data during the night during low usage time.
It is just scanning for certain tail tail signs on flag users.
LOL my first though as well. Someone has never messed with large data structures to understand that 300k even with lets say a million data points each is not exactly an insane amount to search threw.
They wouldn't be searching through that 2% they would be searching though everyone (otherwise if they knew what 2% it was there would be no reason not search!) lol. But even that is not hard to run an algorithm on... The question is how solid the algorithm is and whether they would spend the resources to pursue it. That also depends on how much this is really costing them. We seem to have a number of devs in here that understand the technical question of HOW to identify the people tethering, but a lot fewer people who either understand or just look at the business side of this. with any company the reasons behind whether or not it makes financial sense to do something will always affect the outcome more than whether they technically can. Anyone even close to an executive decision making level at a company ha seen this a million times. Some problem that it look clear could be fixed, some feature that could easily be added and seems like it should... But if it will cost more money than it will make it ends up being dropped.
Its simple and relatively cheap to run a basic algorithm that flags potential offenders and blasts out an email. But it's more expensive to take all the flagged accounts, run more intense checking, follow up on it in a less automated way, deal with false positives etc. It may be the case that they only plan to do the former and shake the tree a little to scare some people off and reduce a problem that's already pretty small in the scope of things.
Its simple and relatively cheap to run a basic algorithm that flags potential offenders and blasts out an email. But it's more expensive to take all the flagged accounts, run more intense checking, follow up on it in a less automated way, deal with false positives etc. It may be the case that they only plan to do the former and shake the tree a little to scare some people off and reduce a problem that's already pretty small in the scope of things.
Last edited:
1. Search logs for key values in the packets which identify tethering.
2. Look IMEI up in customer database.
3. Check if customer has a tethering plan.
4. If not, Send customer a text and/or an email.
5. Set bit on customer database to indicate candidate for mandatory tethering plan.
Simple.
2. Look IMEI up in customer database.
3. Check if customer has a tethering plan.
4. If not, Send customer a text and/or an email.
5. Set bit on customer database to indicate candidate for mandatory tethering plan.
Simple.
A) The word is "through", as in " I looked through the glass" or " I searched through the data.". It's not "threw" as in "I threw the ball."
B) you cannot setup packet inspection for only those that use over a certain amount. You turn on inspection on the device and decide how to act upon it. This IS a significant step to take on a network of this size and I would venture to guess that AT&T hasn't gone this far. I'm on the side of them just tagging high volume users and firing off the email.
I was going to say... This isn't that hard at all and could be done with a simple program.
I have multiple Cisco CCIE's on staff that disagree. Turning on that level of logging within a network the size of AT&T would be brutal. It's a huge deal.
These justifications are killing me....so instead of the anolgy of comparing it to food let's try this
You have 500 anytime minutes and you should be able to use them as you want on any phone without paying extra....as you know that does not exsist so why would you think there should be a data plan that allows you to use it on any device?
I cannot comprehend the sense of entitlement it is amazing.
True fact -- the most lie told....not no you don't look fat honey...it is "I agree" to terms and conditions ..... You just got caught in your lie and wanna take it out on the one who caught you --- ATT.
You have 500 anytime minutes and you should be able to use them as you want on any phone without paying extra....as you know that does not exsist so why would you think there should be a data plan that allows you to use it on any device?
I cannot comprehend the sense of entitlement it is amazing.
True fact -- the most lie told....not no you don't look fat honey...it is "I agree" to terms and conditions ..... You just got caught in your lie and wanna take it out on the one who caught you --- ATT.
My account is on the SIM card so I can transfer it to any GSM phone I want and use it. You are dead wrong.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8F190 Safari/6533.18.5)
delete
delete
These people did opt in when they actively jailbroke their phones for the purpose of tethering. I love how everybody brags about getting one over on the system, and then when the party ends, they act like they were victimized.
And obviously if you call AT&T they will not hold you to this increased price. They know that many people will be too embarrassed (or too lazy) to complain.
Dead wrong? So you can use 2 different devices with the same anytime minutes at the same time with out paying $10 extra a month? I think I may have just gotten life support...I am not dead wrong.
So far I haven't heard one report from someone who has received the warning without tethering.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8F190 Safari/6533.18.5)
What does it take to catch a thief?
What does it take to catch a thief?