AT&T to Clamp Down on Data Leechers?

The tech-savvy among us have been tethering our laptops through data enabled phones to AT&T's (formerly Cingular) data network for years. The concept of tethering is simple, attach your phone to your laptop via Bluetooth or direct connection, and make a connection to the provider's data network so you can browse the web and send e-mail with your laptop from anywhere. AT&T allows this practice on their top-tier data plans (starting at $59.99 per month), but users with smarts have been able to tether with unlimited data packages as low as $19.99 for years without any problems or additional charges.

Cellular providers have been getting wise to the practice for some time now, and have slowly been crippling phones to prevent users from dialing in without permission and upgrading their networks to catch data leechers tethering their laptops at lower packages. Crippling a phone typically means disabling the DUN (dial-up networking) Bluetooth profile that allows a PC to use the phone as a data modem.

My new 8525 (with the latest software/firmware) is no exception to the rule, and when paired with a PC via Bluetooth or USB, simply creates a "Personal Area Network" connection instead of listing all the phone's services. The new pre-installed "Internet Connection Sharing" program handles dialing out and sharing the connection with the computer. Suffice to say, attempting to dial-out when you're not subscribed to a higher tier plan fails to work. I've used every trick in the book, and I can't get it to work. The phone is locked down pretty tight, but I won't admit to being much of a hacker.

For those of you tethering on lower priced plans on hardware that isn't locked down, be forewarned. I was recently in an AT&T store upgrading my data plan, and overheard a conversation between an AT&T employee and someone on the phone in regards to another customer's problem on this very topic. According to what I could gather (it's not my habit to spy, but he was talking quite loud), this month AT&T (who apparently can now tell if you're tethered to the network from a computer) will be hunting their network for data leechers.

What happens then is unclear (I only heard one side of the conversation), but odds are customers not subscribed to the appropriate data plans could be fined with additional data charges, or find their data services cut off entirely. Of course, this could have been a scare tactic to get the customer in question to upgrade to a higher data plan, but it seemed pretty genuine to me.

I don't have a problem with AT&T enforcing their data plans, but there are two things that irk me.

1. Under the "new" pricing structure, those with voice plans and 3G enabled phones pay the same price for tethering as someone who walks in a buys a mobile data card for their laptop. Why can't voice users (who no doubt give AT&T way too much money per month) get a break as an incentive to carry additional services on not just one, but perhaps many phones?

2. Why the heck is tethering even considered a feature? With full featured web browsers and e-mail clients bringing the desktop web experience to smartphones, why do we all have to pay another $20+ dollars a month just to use a bigger screen and different keyboard. I understand there's potential for those to abuse the system (like doing bittorrent and P2P over the mobile data network), but $20 bucks MORE a month? That puts it three times more expensive than my high speed DSL line. How about just twice the price? Isn't that fair?

One way or another, watch your cell bills. They may be sucking $60 a month out of me for data, but you could end up paying a lot more on per KB charges for tethering on an unsupported plan. Let's face it, there may be no such thing as a free lunch anymore.

Subscribe to this blog: RSS Feed

Comments

Free lunch!!???

How is tethering a free lunch? AT&T offers tethering on all their phones, except the iphone. Different phones do it differently, but it is supported, and it is free with the right data plan. The concept of charging an extra fee for tethering is relatively new, and only because they are trying to find new ways to gouge the customer. I love my iphone, but I *HATE* AT&T. They are trying to take advantage of their customers, while providing crappy service.

I could unlock my phone, and move to TMobile, but then I only get 2G. I could go to another country, and buy a legally unlocked phone, come back and sign up with AT&T with a regular PDA plan, and I get everything: Tethering, MMS, the whole deal, for less money, except for Visual Voice mail. But I don't have the option of switching my iphone that I bought in the US over the same way.

It's B.S., and I think the entire AT&T iPhone user community should file a class action law suite against AT&T for their strong arming against iphone customers, which they have singled out... (because they have established an exclusivity agreement with apple, eliminating the consumer's right of choice--even if they paid full price for the phone) it's unethical, and unfair.

Apple needs to leave AT&T, so I can too.

Armand said:
Free lunch!!???
How is tethering a free lunch? AT&T offers tethering on all their phones, except the iphone. Different phones do it differently, but it is supported, and it is free with the right data plan. The concept of charging an extra fee for tethering is relatively new, and only because they are trying to find new ways to gouge the customer.

In 2007, AT&T didn't really monitor data usage on unlimited plans. So my $30 for unlimited tethering was pretty much unlimited at the time. That was the free lunch... though really it was more like an all-you-can-eat buffet for a good price.

This post was right around the start of AT&T going after those who abused their "unlimited plans," and eventually turned into a 5GB data cap. I'm not sure how you define "relatively," tethering plans have been around since late 2006. That's not all that new to me anymore.

In all fairness, this post was written in 2007, just barely after the first iPhone shipped.

I hold little respect for AT&T these days, but don't place the blame solely on them. Exclusivity and control IS how Apple does business, and Apple customers should know that by now. Suing AT&T for that wouldn't make sense.

You want to make a statement? Get rid of your iPhone and switch carriers. 

I agree this no tethering on the Iphone is total BS. We should have the same plans as any other smartphone or PDA. I called today to see if I could get a tethering package on one of my old phones from cingular (before they got bought out) I thought that maybe I could get it on my old phone since it is unsupported on the Iphone. Even though I used to have tethering on this older phone, they told me it was no longer supported for tethering. What's even worse is their new GPS app. It's a talking app I guess to compete with the new Sprint phone. Get this though!!! they want 9.99 per month for it LOL!!! wow.

AT&T is a rip off, the service sucks and they are very expensive. My wife has a boost mobile and she gets better service on her phone then I do.

 

Connect With Techlore