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RANT: why is tethering such a crime?!?!

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(G{in}[AK)TION]

Member
Joined
Apr 14, 2011
all your doing is rerouting the phones internet to the computer. thats it. why are cell phone services like AT&T, net10, straight talk, and many more flipping out over this one feature?

i dont know how its possible or how it even works on net10 phones for tether, but if i were them, set the phone to detect tether activitiy and charge them the same amount as if they were accessing their phones! do any of these companies how ridiculous it is to try to check your bank account on a basic phone while your out in the city?

i remember when i needed to tether on my net10 phone because the internet at my house just gave out. but i just couldnt do it because the phones internal modem was disabled and so i couldnt help my mom upload her homework while the internet was out so tethering was not possible.

can someone please explain to me why its wrong? why its such a crime? i pay for my cellphones services and I want to make full use of WHAT MY CELLPHONE IS CAPABLE OF DOING WITHOUT BEING HINDERED BY THESE RIDICOULOUS RESTRICTIONS THAT MY CELLPHONE PROVIDER PUTS ON THEM!

again, i only see tethering as REROUTING THE CELL PHONES INTERNET TO A COMPUTER. i dont see how it would suck up even more bandwith since the internet coming to the computer is limited to what type of internet speed the phone is capable of handling.
 
its not really really a crime, they just charge you more to do it because generally if it is tethered to a computer you are much more likely to use alot more bandwidth of which they are very scared of giving away. there are apps that let you tether for free, not even rooted or illegal.
 
I tried tethering once but couldn't make it work (Win PC/Android phone) but I have to admit I didn't try too hard. Anywho, what I usually do is I create a WiFi access point with my phone so other devices can access internet through my phone's mobile internet. That's pretty much the same thing as tethering except it's wireless. I've never heard of it being blocked/disabled. Maybe they do it in the States.... never had problems with it in Canada, South America or Asia.
 
1. its not really really a crime,2. they just charge you more to do it because generally if it is tethered to a computer you are much more likely to use alot more bandwidth of which they are very scared of giving away. there are apps that let you tether for free, not even rooted or illegal.

1. i was exaggerating

2. i said in my post about the phone detecting tethering and applying the same charges that would be applied when using data on the phone.
 
If someone was on an unlimited data plan, I can understand why a cell phone company would block tethering. But if someone pays on bandwith usage then I don't see why a cell phone company would block tethering.

That said, I have not that type of problem with Bell Canada and Fido.
 
Because they want you to pay them for the ability to do it would be my guess, why let you do something for free when they can charge you monthly for the pleasure.
 
I use a work around App on my old S1 for my kids to use.

The sim card doesn't allow tethering, but there is ONE app I found that has a work around for it. I believe it 's call TSVP. There is a free version that allows 5 minutes a day of trial tethering time and the paid version is only 15$ for unlimited tethering time.

It works pretty good. And I know it works on S3 as well cause my brother has the same program on his phone.

The carriers get messed up about it cause of the usage. Even though it's "unlimited" it's usually not. After a certain amount of data is used, they'll restrict the speed.

In my minds eyes that's false advertisement. How is it unlimited, but my speed is reduced after only 5 gigs of data usage??
 
It's the same reason that you pay for text messages despite the fact that they are just another form of data - because cell phone companies can demand money for it and it's a standard practice of all cell phone companies. I agree that it is ridiculous. I can understand separating voice and data. But separating data and SMS as well as phone data and tethering data? What a joke.
 
The carriers get messed up about it cause of the usage. Even though it's "unlimited" it's usually not. After a certain amount of data is used, they'll restrict the speed.

In my minds eyes that's false advertisement. How is it unlimited, but my speed is reduced after only 5 gigs of data usage??

i rememebr when i was on the net10 forums, some guy was raging at the reps for terminating his service because he exceeded the 1.5gb limit on his phone even though he bought the unlimited plan. and when i say terminated, i mean they put it to where the phone read "unregistered sim".
 
Because they want you to pay them for the ability to do it would be my guess, why let you do something for free when they can charge you monthly for the pleasure.

QFT

While tethering you are using more bandwidth usually since you are using a computer and requesting desktop versions of webpages, etc. Through various means such as user agent strings, TTL values, etc they can safely assume that you are using tethering and redirect you to a landing page (like T-Mobile does). Usually I can get 2-3 days of tethering in before they notice and redirect me.

Protip: They really only block traffic on port 80/443. I can tether and then VPN to my home network and browse all day long.
 
QFT

While tethering you are using more bandwidth usually since you are using a computer and requesting desktop versions of webpages, etc. Through various means such as user agent strings, TTL values, etc they can safely assume that you are using tethering and redirect you to a landing page (like T-Mobile does). Usually I can get 2-3 days of tethering in before they notice and redirect me.

Protip: They really only block traffic on port 80/443. I can tether and then VPN to my home network and browse all day long.

that answered allot to my question. "Desktop Version". now i know what you mean by "using more bandwith".

is there a web browser that can act like a cell phone browser? where it can tell the web servers "hey im a cellphone browser" and display mobile version of that website instead of the desktop version?
 
In Canada the major carriers do not charge nor do they disable tethering anymore. It's been that way for years.
 
It is typically the user agent that is used to determine if a browser is a mobile device. Most desktop browsers have user agent switching plugins.
 
In Canada the major carriers do not charge nor do they disable tethering anymore. It's been that way for years.

well thats nice to know and all but i am mainly focusing on the USA since i live here. i probably should have mentioned that too.

It is typically the user agent that is used to determine if a browser is a mobile device. Most desktop browsers have user agent switching plugins.

so theres a way to make my desktop web browser look like a mobile web browser?
 
It's pictures and video streaming that kills data usage. Gaming also if it's got adds. Streaming music through Pandora costs me data, but I'm too cheap to pay for the add free version.

ALL OF IT is a way for some company to make a dime. Every penny counts to them, just as much as us, only the have a few million pennies more than we got.
 
so theres a way to make my desktop web browser look like a mobile web browser?

Yes, most definitely :) You just need the right add-on for your browser. I'm assuming you're using Firefox or Chrome.

For FireFox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/user-agent-switcher/

For Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/...r-c/djflhoibgkdhkhhcedjiklpkjnoahfmg?hl=en-US

Using one of those add-ons, you may need to know what your user agent string is of your phone's mobile browser as they may not ship with the user agent string you need. Also, it would be a good idea to match the browser on your phone's user agent. You can find your user agent string here: http://www.whatsmyuseragent.com/
 
Root, unlock bootloader, install Cyanogenmod, done. It's worked for me, and from start to finish it takes less than a minute to configure a new AP.

It's yet another part of the growing list of reasons to not use any of those crappy OEM OSs that are forced upon us.
 
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