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U.S. Carriers Cracking Down on Android Hotspot Tethering Apps
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Fortunately, tethering is built in to vanilla Android. Carriers apparently take the option out when they put out their crappy carrier-specific builds.
Anyone with an Android phone can root and install vanilla Android, or a custom rom like Cyanogenmod, relatively easily.
Anyone with an Android phone can root and install vanilla Android, or a custom rom like Cyanogenmod, relatively easily.
This is a major setback IMHO...
I know it is illegal but carriers make tons of cash with their inflated prices... Who protects us from that?
I know it is illegal but carriers make tons of cash with their inflated prices... Who protects us from that?
Contract terms require "consideration" from both parties to be legally binding. Consideration is something you provide to the other party (i.e., money from you, data services from your carrier).
What consideration are the carriers offering you for tethering? You're already paying $X for Y GB of data used on your phone. It doesn't matter to the carrier if your Netflix app is using it, or your tethering app is sending the data to your laptop. Nothing changes on their end, they just send the data that you've already paid for to your phone, and your phone handles the rest.
You're right, it is black and white. It's a scam aimed at exploiting consumers like yourself who don't know any better, with an illegal contract term. I hope this goes to court soon, before the carriers in Canada (where I am) try to pull the same BS.
Because no root/jailbreak is needed in order to do tethering, even if carriers disable those downloads from the Market. Because you can still download and install apps from anywhere on the internet.
But anyways, I don't think anyone would choose an OS just for one reason alone. Some might, of course.
Lots of people have been choosing the iphone over Android for years when iOS lacked tethering, for example
Its funny how the news sites word the news.. the android market has never been open. In any way. Its been less restrictive than the app store, but thats not being open, at all. I totally disagree with the people who claim android is less open every time something like this changes.
Android is "open" because google releases the latest source from time to time. (Real open source projects work in the open BTW, instead of releasing the source every big release).
That means anybody (read: carriers) can go and take a high class mobile OS for free and do with it what it wants; for better (lots of choices in software and hardware, big ecosystem) and for worse (slow updates, android modifications that suck, mobile phones that suck).
The fact that people could take android and make it even more restrictive than iOS is why it is open.
So yeah. Today android users can sideload any app without rooting/jailbreaking. Tomorrow, all carriers might start shipping phones with that feature disabled.
Thankfully, that has not happened for 99.99% of phones. But it might, because you know, as Android is open, people can modify it for both innovative improvements and new features and for locking it down.
Double edged sword
It's not better and it's not worse, and its better and its worse. it depends on what you like/want. There is choice (and therefore competiton) between excellent mobile OSs, and that's great!
I guess you mean legal? We protect ourselves by not signing on the dotted line. Nothing says that access to data how we want it is a human right. It's a luxury. I'm not a fan of the carriers, but I was the one who went to them; I was neither forced or fooled into forming a contract with them.
They are offering you more bandwidth to use a higher bandwidth service like tethering.
The consideration is very clear. Thanks for quoting the premise for contract law, but claiming there is no consideration there is ridiculous.
People who tether use more bandwidth, so the cost associated with their usage is more expensive. The carriers can either charge those people for tethering or they can raise the price for EVERYONE.
They choose to charge the people who tether. It is a perfectly reasonable choice on their part.
Hey a cable line comes into my house with all the channels on it. I can just jimmy off a filter and get all the channels without paying any more. They are already delivering it to my house, why can't I just get all of them since they are there anyways and I am paying for cable right?
You are not paying for tethering unless you are paying for tethering. The math is simple. People who tether use more bandwidth. Wireless providers set their data prices based on AVERAGE usage. Tethering makes the average usage go up, so the revenue to cover those costs has to come from somewhere.
So they can either charge EVERYONE more or charge the people who tether more.. Again they choose the later.
Not all of us are stuck with a 2GB data limit, and some of us use that "unlimited" concept to tether pretty much every device I have on my desk
They make no extra cash off of me
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8H7 Safari/6533.18.5)
Yeah, until you get a text saying that you have been upgraded to the capped tethering plan without agreeing to it.
I have unltd data, a jailbroken phone and Tetherme and believe me, I'm ready to fire this puppy up any second to use with my iPad but I'm holding back from doing so because I don't want to be forced into the capped tethering plan which is more expensive and less efficient than what I have now. Carriers suck, period.
joeshmo2010 said:Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8H7 Safari/6533.18.5)
Love using tetherme cracked on iphone 4 to use personal hotspot with my unlimited data.
Yeah, until you get a text saying that you have been upgraded to the capped tethering plan without agreeing to it.
I have unltd data, a jailbroken phone and Tetherme and believe me, I'm ready to fire this puppy up any second to use with my iPad but I'm holding back from doing so because I don't want to be forced into the capped tethering plan which is more expensive and less efficient than what I have now. Carriers suck, period.
But of course, I chose my OS (and smartphone) for only 1 reason.
I wanted to tether the EDGE/HSDPA signal to my MacBook, and only iOS and Android did that. My carrier allows me to jailbreak, root, tether, whatever you like, for no additional costs.
Since then I just wanted the cheapest phone with that functionality from a well-known brand so I didn't end with junk, I came up with the HTC Wildfire (250 euros).
The iPhone was just too expensive at 700+ euros unlocked.
My Wildfire + Mobile Vikings (Belgium preferred) = Epic combo! And I'm not bound to a contract, as with many other providers.
That, and my iPod Touch 2G for multimedia, since it's more powerful than the Wildfire hands down. (And I can still tether the internet to my iPod if I wanted to...)
Considering communism is dependent on control of the resources so they can be equally doled out, it's not free and open. You're thinking of anarchy.
Your username is appropriate.
I'm on an unlimited plan, so how do I pay for tethering? I use around 8 GB/month because I stream music, so I can't give up my unlimited. If AT&T offered the option to add a tethering plan, I would take them up on it.
Or they could charge people for the data they actually use, regardless of whether tethering was involved.
People who download videos use more bandwidth than people who don't. So carriers should be able to block YouTube and other sites unless you pay for the "video package", right?
Considering communism is dependent on control of the resources so they can be equally doled out, it's not free and open. You're thinking of anarchy.
Your username is appropriate.
I was referring to things that work in theory and not in practice. Now that you have me going about it though, communism is, in theory, open and in practice, not open. You are describing the practice of it, not the theory. Thanks for proving my point.
Are you seriously defending charging for tethering!? What do you mean MORE bandwidth?
I am paying for a 25 dollar 2gb plan for my phone. 2gb, is 2gb, is 2gb. If I tether it DOES NOT MATTER MY BANDWIDTH, once i use up 2gb i pay overages. It is that simple... I dont have to tether to use 2gb.
Your cable example is weak. On cable you are paying for the content on that line. On your data plan there is no content to pay for.. it is just straight internet.
A better cable example would be a cable company charging you monthly to extend your cable to each seperate room.
Considering communism is dependent on control of the resources so they can be equally doled out, it's not free and open. You're thinking of anarchy.
Your username is appropriate.
I'm on an unlimited plan, so how do I pay for tethering? I use around 8 GB/month because I stream music, so I can't give up my unlimited. If AT&T offered the option to add a tethering plan, I would take them up on it.
I would gladly pay $20 a month to tether on my unlimited plan.
I'd still argue that communism isn't really open because it's a top down government, but in theory it is more open than it is in reality.
In Texas, people are so ignorant about different forms of government, I forget that other people are more educated.
In Texas, people are so ignorant about different forms of government, I forget that other people are more educated.
I'd agree with you that there may be consideration with unlimited data plans as you might be using your phone outside the scope of what they initially envisioned when they offered you unlimited data, but those are largely a thing of the past now.
With regards to tiered pricing, what you're suggesting is that you're not entitled to the data you paid for should you choose to use some of it for tethering. If you paid for 2 GB a month, you can damn well get 2 GB a month. 2 GB a month was the consideration they offered you. It's none of your concern if the carrier sold it to you with the assumption that you'd only use 500 MB a month. They can't charge you more because your tethering makes you more likely to approach the 2 GB cap they offered you. You aren't legally obligated to pay twice for that same 2 GB of consideration if you want to use a tethering app.
Any concerns carriers have with bandwidth use can be addressed through their data plans, which they have full control of. They are not within their rights to start dictating what apps can or can't access data on your phone. Even if tethering apps generate a lot of data use, charging specifically for tethering is just a stopgap for a larger problem with their data plan pricing structure. Tethering apps are just one type of many high bandwidth apps. Are they going to start charging for all of them? Do you think that's reasonable?
Today your wireless ISP charges extra for tethering, tomorrow it will charge extra to access Netflix, and perhaps later on, your local ISP will want in on the action and start charge per device connected to your router. This segmented path of internet service is not a path I want to go down. The moment data becomes more than just data, and becomes data by application or use, is the day that consumers lose.
I am still referring to pure communism, with no top down government. You are referring to the Leninist theory that has become what we commonly think of communism as, which has a vanguard party lead the proletariat. Unfortunately this is not the right thread to continue this discussion.
Back on topic... the bottom line is, does it suck to be charged twice for data? Yes, it does. Is it legal? Yes, you agreed to it, and if you were in the carriers shoes, you would do the same. As cited previously, it does make economic sense as the price for all of us would go up if they allowed it at no additional cost. Are you stealing when you circumvent paying? Yes, and whether or not that matters is up to you.
So much for the freedom of being open
- carriers adding crapware by default
- carriers blocking certain apps
- carriers preventing you from updating to the latest OS (or if you are lucky only delay it for a long time)
- android was the only mobile platform where the remote wipe had to be used once for 'bad' apps
.... yep, way to go Android - open is good (for carriers, not the user)
Exactly. They are not smart enough to realize it's 'open' to the carriers, not the end users.
Oh, and that Google is tracking them in almost real time.
So maybe, just maybe you fandroids out there, Apple had the foresight to design an ecosystem that just works and do it the right way.
Seems like as the Android OS gets bigger, it moves more in the direction of being like iOS.
"were free and open!" ya right
Seems like as the Android OS gets bigger, it moves more in the direction of being like iOS.
"were free and open!" ya right
Android Tethering - No App Required
Android 2.3 (and I think 2.2) support wi/fi tethering in the OS, no app needed. If you have an android phone with 2.2 or 2.3 (I do because ATT service sucked where I live), just select SETTINGS then WIRELESS & Networks, then "Tethering & portable hotspot" to set the phone up as a wi/fi hub with data access.
I haven't used the iphone in a while (since moving to T-MO), so I don't know if IOS supports something similar.
(using a Nexus One)
Android 2.3 (and I think 2.2) support wi/fi tethering in the OS, no app needed. If you have an android phone with 2.2 or 2.3 (I do because ATT service sucked where I live), just select SETTINGS then WIRELESS & Networks, then "Tethering & portable hotspot" to set the phone up as a wi/fi hub with data access.
I haven't used the iphone in a while (since moving to T-MO), so I don't know if IOS supports something similar.
(using a Nexus One)
Ok, I'm taking down the names of all the carrier defenders here.
The next time you people bitch about the cable companies or magazine publishers charging you twice for the "one" thing you paid for I'm gonna be all over you.
The next time you people bitch about the cable companies or magazine publishers charging you twice for the "one" thing you paid for I'm gonna be all over you.
