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MyWi Tethering: Anyone Charged by AT&T?
- Thread starter NJRonbo
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I just think it's too funny people get so worried about tethering on their phone. Look up the thread that has "The most data usage in a month" and you'll see all the heavy users were tethering. The most was 96gigs and the guy still had 8 days left on his monthly bill. He even called AT&T and asked if he was going to be charged extra and they said no because he was on the unlimited plan. People have been tethering for years and I have never, ever heard of anyone being reprimanded for their actions. So why worry.
1) As mentioned, my carrier (vodafone) charged me because i was tethering. Do you want to see my bill?
2) Those are not random fees because you are using services that is not included in your contract.
4-5) They can prove by looking into IP address. ATT didn't do anything does not mean that they don't know or can't prove.
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This is again wrong. If the contract says, "if you breach Clause X you pay Y" that is perfectly legally and valid. Such a clause is called a liquidated damages clause and is often used in situations where it would be too cumbersome to prove damages.
And not all contractual breaches give rise to a right to terminate the contract.
In short. That is wrong. Really quite legally wrong.
They can't "LEGALLY" charge you because you are not breaking any law. There are no state or federal laws against tethering. Companies cannot make laws but they can create a contract that if you agree to you must follow whether you like the rules or not.
HOWEVER you are violating an agreement (contract) that you agreed to which is binding. They can charge you for the data used or they can sue you civilly (like on People's Court) for violating the contract between you and them. If you choose not to pay they can send you to collections.
This is not to say they will do it, just that they "can" and you wouldn't stand a chance to win which is why no one has attempted a class action for this. After you lost your contract case you could appeal and/or start a class action against them.
Of course this will never happen as no one to date has been bothered for tethering without paying the fee.
Contracts ARE law. They are privately made law, but law nonetheless. The question is whether the courts will enforce the contracts, which is debatable. They might find that by advertising unlimited data, but limiting it in the final contract that it is for only data requests which originate through your phone, though not sent or received by a secondary device as far as the network is concerned, it is too confusing and unenforceable, just as unlimited internet that can't be fed through a router may be unenforceable as long as it is all by one user (or user family).
All I want to know is if someone gets charged any extra fees to please post. So many people are worried about getting charged from AT&T but in reality they have nothing to worry about.
Just my 2 cents!
I've been Tethering for a while myself and my data usage varies and I'm sure looks odd to at&t (it does to me). I go in and out of the USA for sometimes months at a time a few times a year and in those months that I use no data at all but I'm also not using voice either on at&t's network. As I'm unlocked but then there are months while back in the states that I use over 10gigs of data but then the next month maybe only 2gigs. I don't tether to heavy of loads or nothing and at times I even use over 2gigs without Tethering. With all that said though AT&T has never given me a hardtime on my bill and I've been doing this for a few years now so I think you should be fine.
I also don't overly abuse it though and I prefer MyWi to other options.
I've been Tethering for a while myself and my data usage varies and I'm sure looks odd to at&t (it does to me). I go in and out of the USA for sometimes months at a time a few times a year and in those months that I use no data at all but I'm also not using voice either on at&t's network. As I'm unlocked but then there are months while back in the states that I use over 10gigs of data but then the next month maybe only 2gigs. I don't tether to heavy of loads or nothing and at times I even use over 2gigs without Tethering. With all that said though AT&T has never given me a hardtime on my bill and I've been doing this for a few years now so I think you should be fine.
I also don't overly abuse it though and I prefer MyWi to other options.
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Loads of Data
Thought I would share...
I have an iPhone 4 with the unlimitted data plan. I use MyWi. At the end of November I moved out of my house and since then I haven't had any Internet.
I do my most of my work over the Internet, besides tons and tons of downloads. I enjoy testing software. I run my laptop, computer, and two or three iTouchs at a time for the last couple of months. This includes torrents and streaming. MAYBE IRRISPONSIBLE... but just wanted to test. Never found a definate answer on this subject and wanted to see myself.
I estimate about 30-50Gb/mo. I ended up with a $450 dollar phone bill this month so I called to see whats going on. I thought it had something to do with the data. She said it was just because of my minute overage. I even asked if it had anything to do with my data and she said "no, you have unlimited data".
There it is. They don't care.
Thought I would share...
I have an iPhone 4 with the unlimitted data plan. I use MyWi. At the end of November I moved out of my house and since then I haven't had any Internet.
I do my most of my work over the Internet, besides tons and tons of downloads. I enjoy testing software. I run my laptop, computer, and two or three iTouchs at a time for the last couple of months. This includes torrents and streaming. MAYBE IRRISPONSIBLE... but just wanted to test. Never found a definate answer on this subject and wanted to see myself.
I estimate about 30-50Gb/mo. I ended up with a $450 dollar phone bill this month so I called to see whats going on. I thought it had something to do with the data. She said it was just because of my minute overage. I even asked if it had anything to do with my data and she said "no, you have unlimited data".
There it is. They don't care.
They can't "LEGALLY" charge you because you are not breaking any law. There are no state or federal laws against tethering. Companies cannot make laws but they can create a contract that if you agree to you must follow whether you like the rules or not.
HOWEVER you are violating an agreement (contract) that you agreed to which is binding. They can charge you for the data used or they can sue you civilly (like on People's Court
This is not to say they will do it, just that they "can" and you wouldn't stand a chance to win which is why no one has attempted a class action for this. After you lost your contract case you could appeal and/or start a class action against them.
Of course this will never happen as no one to date has been bothered for tethering without paying the fee.
True that. I'd really like to see it go to court. I'd put money against AT&T. Just because it is in a contract that one person is forced to sign if they want service doesn't make it enforceable. If it was as simple as that, there's be a lot of lawyers out of business.
If you're on vodaphone, you're not in the United States. What happens in your country does not translate into what can and does happen here.
It is enforceable.
The only thing which stops AT&T from actually enforcing is because it is generally prohibitively expensive to sue. In other words, it is entirely conceivable that AT&T will spend more on legal fees than on what they may achieve through the suit. That is not even taking into account the negative publicity that AT&T will attract through a law suit whereby the media will likely crucify AT&T for being the "big bully" and the defendant (person who tethers) as a poor little lost soul.
Did you even read this thread? I've already said i am from a different country.
So what you are saying is that another carrier can detect and charge user for tethering and ATT can't? I suppose other carriers around the world has the technology and ATT doesn't.
I think it's to early in this process to figure out if At&t really knows if people are tethering or just using a shotgun approach. Send out a number of notices to heavy users and see what sticks. This seems to be a typical behavior for corporate America. After all we know businesses try this with billing, they knowingly send out false bills overcharging their customers in the expectation that some will meekly pay the overcharges while others will object and after a few months get the charges corrected. They are still ahead by the ones that went along. Phone companies, credit card companies, and some utilities do this as a normal part of the way they do business and AT&T certainly did this with land lines. They are going to do what ever they can to collect the most charges with the smallest investment of resources.
I'll be very surprised if this is any different.
I'll be very surprised if this is any different.
This link is a post on The Register (UK) which supposedly tells how to prevent AT&T from telling if you are tethering:
http://forums.theregister.co.uk/post/1016691
The method, which is for Windows, involves setting your computer's TTL (time to live for IP packets) to 65. Presumably there is a way to do this on Mac as well.
I have no idea whether this actually works.
http://forums.theregister.co.uk/post/1016691
The method, which is for Windows, involves setting your computer's TTL (time to live for IP packets) to 65. Presumably there is a way to do this on Mac as well.
I have no idea whether this actually works.
That looks to be one small roadblock.
If you want to chance it, go ahead.
The risk is, AT&T changes your plan for you and you can either eat it, or cancel.
Change a TTL variable might save the users that actually use tethering correctly, to get internet on another device temporarily while you are away from your main ISP.
But for those data vampires that bitorrent their home machines through their phones...
You don't think AT&T can't look at the detail of an account that uses 7GBs per month?
Hmm, sir, it seems you were using torrent protocols through your phone.
Your phone doesn't support those protocols, therefore you were tethering.
Would you like to start your new contract now, or next billing cycle???
I use mywi when I'm at a conference and don't want to cough up money for the hotel Internet. I go to maybe 3-4 conferences a year, so I hardly need a full-blown tethering plan.
I have not received a notice. I'm on the 2GB plan and never even come close to my limit.
I have not received a notice. I'm on the 2GB plan and never even come close to my limit.
I would say this is most people's tethering use, the tards that use it as a primary Internet source are fairly few. AT&T is just trying to use them as an excuse to squeeze more blood
This pisses me off.
Then it sounds like the $45 a month Data Pro package might be a good idea then. I know it's $15 more a month, but if it's really your primary internet, and you stay below 4GB a month, then $15 more a month is probably not a bad deal.