iPhone "Personal Hotspot" on/off switch appeared overnight...?

[Prof.]

I woke up this morning, went into settings to turn off Aiplane mode, and saw this:

I have never seen the Personal Hotspot switch in the main settings menu like this before. Like I said, it appeared out of nowhere overnight. Anyone know why it decided to randomly appear? I've never touched this setting.

 

[saving107]

If you slide it on, does it turn on Hotspot or does the feature go away?

If it turns on, I would call your service provider and have them disable that feature because you more likely will get billed for that.

 

[Prof.]

Ugh! Great! I'll have to call VZN tomorrow and find out why it's activated. I didn't do anything to even hint to verizon that i want tethering on my iPhone. If they charge me the $40 or whatever, I'm gonna be mad as hell.

EDIT: I went into my Data usage settings, it says I have used 1KB of tethering data. I have no idea how this happened. I know 1KB is nothing to fret about, but you know verizon is gonna charge me for that 1KB lol.

 

[saving107]

If they charge me the $40 or whatever, I'm gonna be mad as hell.

AT&T pro-rates their Tethering plan, so it works out to something like $0.60 a day ($20 a/mo), not sure if Verizon does the same but I doubt that they would charge you without you knowing and then refuse a refund.

What happens if you switch it to ON?

If you don't have plan on your account, HotSpot wouldn't be able to turn on and that setting will go away.

 

[Prof.]

When I turn it to "on", it gives me the access code and says my iPhone is "now discoverable"

 

[jent]

AT&T pro-rates their Tethering plan, so it works out to something like $0.60 a day ($20 a/mo), not sure if Verizon does the same but I doubt that they would charge you without you knowing and then refuse a refund.

Do you have a source for this? I would definitely use the hotspot feature when I need internet on the go on my laptop, but I've always thought that you would be charged the full price regardless of how much internet you used.

 

[omegle]

Don't worry. You won't be able to use it even if it's on. Verizon will detect it, then redirect your web requests to their page where you can pick a hotspot package to add to your account.

 

[Prof.]

Cool, thanks guys! I'm gonna call verizon tomorrow just to make sure. I don't want any surprise fees. I already pay them $85/mo, they don't need any more of my money! HA!

I'm still baffled how the tethering option just appeared on my iPhone literally overnight.

 

[Big-TDI-Guy]

Where did your VPN slider go?

 

[Prof.]

Where did your VPN slider go?

It's in network settings. What is VPN?

 

[saving107]

Do you have a source for this? I would definitely use the hotspot feature when I need internet on the go on my laptop, but I've always thought that you would be charged the full price regardless of how much internet you used.

Yes, I do this all the time.

I use the AT&T wireless app on my iPhone, log on and go to features to add the tethering plan, normally within 30 seconds its been enabled (same process to disable it).

When I travel and have multiple people in the car, I enable it so that people with iPod touch's or iPads can access Safari or rdio/pandora, several months ago my sister had surgery and so I enabled for 3 days so that family/friends can FaceTime her while we were in the hospital, and a few weeks ago their was an internet outage in my town/area and I used to be able to go online from my iMac.

(these were just some example's).

In all these situations, I've enabled it for a few days and have never been charged the full amount.