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Also, notice that they're not charging extra for tethering, or care how many devices you tether to. As far as they're concerned, data is data because you're pay

• pluma 12y ago
  Why would they charge extra for tethering? Is that a thing in some countries?
  • wmf 12y ago
    It's a thing in the US, because "computer data" is better and more expensive than "phone data".
    • pluma 12y ago
      Amazing. How do they tell whether you're tethering, though? If you're using your own smartphone, I mean.
      • jpco 12y ago
        They don't, but on-phone software (stock iOS, as a prominent example) enforces the policy.
        • pluma 12y ago
          I was furious when I bought a Nexus 7 (first version) and found out that tethering wasn't available on the device (although there was no obvious reason it shouldn't be and rooting the device would have allowed me to enable it). Running into this on stock devices seems absurd.
      • psquid 12y ago
        There's various ways: Some rely on the device itself to enforce it, but that's obviously fragile if you can bring your own device. Some check the TTL of your packets when they enter the carrier's network, because tethering is at least one more hop and so even if your computer's OS and phone's OS agree on what TTL starts at, the TTL will still be different than expected for your device's platform. Obviously this can still be mitigated by adjusting your TTL, but outside of software that'll handle this for them, that's already beyond a lot of customers. Some even take the route of only checking HTTP traffic, and detecting tethering based on User-Agent, but I think a lot have abandoned that because it doesn't catch other protocols, and is easily bypassed even on HTTP.
• wtallis 12y ago
  Won't the new FCC net neutrality rules effectively prevent tethering charges when they go into effect? Specifically, since providers will no longer be allowed to do anything to interfere with tethering, any tethering fees will be completely optional to the consumer.