Hey Rob,
I recently got one of the infamous emails from at&t saying that I have been tethering. I have been tethering since about August or so. What is weird though is that I am not really a power user. I usually only use about 2 gigs per month.
I called them and asked if they could tell me when I was seen as tethering, and the At&t employee said that he did not have that information, and that they are not telling customers when we have been tethering. They said that if I kept tethering, that they will start charging me.
I looked at the contract, and it says that they can change prices whenever they want, but if they do, you can decide to terminate the contract without paying the cancellation fee. I was thinking about calling them and telling them that if they put me on the new plan, I will cancel my plan, not pay the early cancel fee and go to Verizon and get the iphone there.
I was wondering what you think about this.
Thanks,
Matthew
Hi Matthew,
There does now appear to be a method in which AT&T can tell if you are actually tethering. Here is what will be on the next show with regards to this.
Thanks to Todd for sending a link for this next one - and it is with regards to AT&T and one way they are possibly tracking which people are tethering illegally. Seems according to a post on an android site that when you tether with an iPhone it sends data to a different access port at AT&T - thus they can supposedly tell if you are tethering. Seems that applications like MyWi use the standard / stock method for tethering and send data via this special Tethering port. Redmond Pie is reporting that the Application PDA Net - which is another tethering app we have talked about in the past - is not. And the latest version even has an option to "hide data". I did say possibly early on as again AT&T definitely is text people that have never tethered. My question to those that have gotten the text message and were actually jailbroken and tethering - which app were you using - MyWi, PDA Net or another app?
So what I would suggest is that you switch to PDA Net from MyWi if you want to stay with AT&T - which will depend on where you live. In the midwest - when you factor in you have faster data connections with AT&T and not the issues of dropped calls like in NYC or San Fran - I would suggest you stay with AT&T.
Let us know what you decide to do.
Regards,
Rob W
Tii