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The issue I have is that we've yet to see whether the tethering/WiFi hotspot features will actually be allowed by the carriers (for free). Sprint has already a
by mdasen 16y ago
The issue I have is that we've yet to see whether the tethering/WiFi hotspot features will actually be allowed by the carriers (for free). Sprint has already announced plans that WiFi hotspot service will be $30/mo with their Android 2.1 EVO. It is unreasonable to believe that Sprint is going to let Android 2.2 devices tether for free and charge $30/mo for older devices. In the end, this feature will likely end up similar to iPhone tethering. If you're willing to "jailbrake" the phone, it's there. Of course, it's likely that carriers will be able to detect tethering (it really shouldn't be too hard) and call up the user to tell them that they have to stop or a $XX charge will be added to their account monthly for tethering usage. They might even add the charge without alerting the user - how many people who don't have a data plan get charged without being alerted when they accidentally hit the web button on their phone? I don't think it's wholly unreasonable to believe that carriers might do the same for tethering.
As much as we'd all like to think that Google's in the driver's seat fighting for users rights when Apple won't stand up for them, it's still the networks who are the gatekeepers. Froyo has the technological capability to do tethering/hotspot service. It's a great capability to add and it's great that Google has done so. That doesn't mean it's going to be free.
- barrkel 16y agoI'd be interested to know how they're going to stop it, for people who've gotten their own phones.
- ja27 16y agoI've been occasionally tethering on Sprint (with PDANet) for almost 3 years and haven't been "caught" yet. I try to VPN so it isn't completely trivial to see that my traffic is from a tethered laptop. But I'd be ok paying $30/month for tethering if I had to. I just wasn't ok with $60/month.
- Steltek 16y agoThat you haven't been caught yet doesn't imply that they won't start trying in the future. With the vast uptake in smartphones and those smartphones now coming equipped with tethering, carriers just might find it's worthwhile to crack down.
- orangecat 16y agoIf you listen to the carriers tethering is a magical new feature that they have to spend lots of resources adding support for, when in reality it's a capability inherent to the architecture of the Internet until they deliberately block it. Building tethering into Android puts a spotlight on this idiocy and will hopefully end it, the same way that pushing updates quickly to the Nexus One has motivated some carriers to actually support their existing customers.
- jim_dot 16y agoRogers in Canada offers tethering for free :D
- ZeroGravitas 16y agoIt appears Vodafone in the UK will allow it up to their fair use policy, which appears to be 500MB a month. They'll notify you by text if you hit this limit, and you can of course pay more if you expect to use more than that. They also state that the Nexus One updates come straight from Google, as do the HTC Android/Sense come direct from HTC.