Comments on: How AT&T Detects Unofficial Tethering and How to Stop It by Acting Like Android

By: Renzo

Renzo — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 18:03:45 +0000

While I agree with you, AT&T has told me the same story as well. They claim that if you connect your phone in any possible way to any device that this is considered tethering. Yes, I know that this is not tethering, but they claim it is.

By: low

low — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 00:17:04 +0000

I have the samsung flight 2 also………how do you tether it……? Have been trying unsuccessfuly….please help…I have unlimited data….

By: sdlkj

sdlkj — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 17:45:05 +0000

How is that a breach of privacy? They are allowed to look at any and all traffic that they serve to your phone. Now, if you were on Wi-Fi at home, and they looked at the packets you were sending there, that would be a violation of your privacy. But it’s their network, and they are allowed to look at anything you do on the internet, even if that’s only to protect themselves and be able to comply with legal investigations as to your activities. They have every right to detect that you’re using a service that you haven’t paid for and try to get you to pay for it.

On the other hand, I wholeheartedly agree that you shouldn’t *have* to pay for that service, tethering is a crappy way to try to get people to let go of the unlimited plan.

But even though it’s stupid, they can still do that, and you have every right to stop paying them the money and move to a better carrier. Then, they will find out that people do not like the way they are trying to run their business – as that business falls apart.

Unfortunately, it’s a crappy situation, because they are doing this and many people are too ignorant to do anything about it. So, while I agree that their position is dumb (I’m paying for lots of data, why do you care *where* I consume it – iPhones can now pull just as much bandwidth as a computer, and it’s not like when I tether I get anymore bandwidth anyway, it’s still awfully slow), there really isn’t any point to trying to sue them. That’s almost a pity lawsuit – look we can’t figure out how to manage this ourselves, so instead of letting them figure it out when people stop paying them, we want to try and cry about feeling duped (did you read your contract…?).

By: Luis

Luis — Fri, 25 May 2012 05:31:47 +0000

att might as well charge for using your house’s wifi!!!!! i just got the email. they can seriously go f themselves!!

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 16 May 2012 02:44:14 +0000

Amen to that! I recently bought an iPad and I have the at&t 2 gig plan- normally I use about 300-400mb- I wanted to tether but they said I had to upgrade to the 5gb plan to tether because I would use a lot more data- I said that makes no sense- the only thing I would be doing on the iPad is Facebook and email so there is no way I would use that much more data- they insisted that I would. I told them that was ridiculous- why would I pay for more data when i don’t even use what I pay for now?

By: Andy

Andy — Mon, 07 May 2012 17:57:54 +0000

Streaming music through the headphone jack to a pair of speakers is not tethering. This conversation is talking about sharing your phones internet connection with another device in order to access the internet from that device. Either you’ve misunderstood what the rep was explaining or the rep simply did not explain correctly. Either way, hooking up a pair of speakers or headphones to your headphone jack to play Pandora is perfectly fine.

By: alude904

alude904 — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 15:56:19 +0000

Don’t use PDA Net for the iPhone. AT&T will catch you. even if you use that feature that supposedly hides your tethering from them. it doesn’t work. AT&T has caught two of my iPhones tethering. just warning you now.

By: oi12bu

oi12bu — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 23:05:30 +0000

The power company doesn’t offer flat rates, so let’s look at your analogy in a different way. Say you’re renting out a room in your house for a flat fee with utilities included and they start plugging in their Nissan Leaf, substantially raising your electrical bill. Would you not raise their rent to cover the additional cost you are now incurring?

I would love my unlimited data plan to tether for free so I could keep my phone plugged in 24/7 and fill my hard drive with torrents, but I can see that AT&T is worried about exactly that.

By: quinth

quinth — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 02:35:11 +0000

very DUMB IDEA TMOBILE gives you a measly 2G with iphone if you want tmobile GET A 4G PHONE WITH EM FOOL

By: Lotto

Lotto — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 05:24:33 +0000

Sorry, there is no Semi. Your phone internet connection runs at 80kbps. That’s not much faster than a $10 modem. It wouldn’t matter if you tethered a mainframe to it, it still runs at the same 80kbps. Unlimited is unlimited. It’s my 80kbps and I’ll do with it what I want.

By: Keith

Keith — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 20:57:29 +0000

Bruce, that last line is a little dick-ish.

You miss the point that MANY people who have tethered very little get the AT&T letters and if you continue tethering, you will too.

…and THAT will put a BIG smile on my face.

By: TrackerX55

TrackerX55 — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:43:23 +0000

I’ve just received one of those e-mails and I don’t even use tethering. Being that all I can get is a dial-up, I use my phone for everything, work and the research I do entails a lot of data usage, max of 15gb 6 months ago which is why I opted for the unlimited data at the time. I download what I need and then transfer it to my PC at home. 3 weeks ago I installed PDAnet on my phone but have yet to try it as my signal at home is unreliable at best, (I can watch my phone log back on to the system an average of 6-7 times an hour). Concurrently not long after that I updated the OS to Gingerbread and as you know AT&T has to put their hacks into it before releasing it. The real issue is
1. The packet sniffing that was mentioned earlier
2. With the AT&T hacking of the software, the possibility
of them scanning your phone to see what you have on
your phone.

BOTH a violation of Privacy..

Simply put AT&T’s service sucks, but they keep coming up with ways to charge you more for a service that is completely unreliable (All carriers do). This is totally unacceptable.
I see people filing lawsuits against them, AGAIN…

By: bruce

bruce — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 10:07:51 +0000

oh update i very rarely if ever use net flix or hulu.

By: bruce

bruce — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 10:01:58 +0000

I have verizon unlimited data. I have used iphones and android devices. I have had 3 verizon reps tell me to use pda.net. And dont worry about it. The most i ever used was 8Gigs in one month. I have never gotten a letter from verizon. On avg. i use 5 to 6 GIGS IN A MONTH. And i do a lot of tethering. And on my android devices i use barnacle wifi its wifi hot spot. So is pda.net for iphone. So unless your a DATA HOG well yes you will get letters and busted. Which puts a smile on my face.

By: gamedad94928

gamedad94928 — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 22:19:50 +0000

Good thinking, too bad nobody picked up the ball and ran with it