Google Bans Tethering App From Android Market

narramissic writes "Maybe Android and the Android Market aren't so open after all. A developer who contributed to the WiFi Tether for Root Users app reports that Google has banned the application from the Android Market. The developer writes in his blog that Google cited a section of the developer agreement that says that Google may remove applications if they violate the device maker's or the operator's terms of service. T-Mobile, the only operator to offer an Android phone, expressly forbids tethering phones to a computer. This incident raises some interesting questions, the developer notes in his blog. 'Does this mean that apps in the Market have to adhere to the ToS for only T-Mobile, even when other carriers sign on? Will all apps have to adhere to the ToS for every carrier that supports Android phones?'"

Comments

If only

[QuantumG]

I knew what the fuck "Tethering" is. Presumably it doesn't involve ropes you use in space.

Re:If only

[fractoid]

From TFA:

The application lets users connect their G1 Android phones via Wi-Fi to their laptops and then access the Internet from the laptop using the phone's cellular connection.

Re:If only

[linhares]

The problem with AT&T verizon and these companies is that they are denying, or trying to deny, what they really are: DUMB FUCKING PIPES.

They see no glamourous future for them if they are DUMB FUCKING PIPES.

But that is exactly what they should be striving for. People will jailbreak, people will fork android, hacker will have PALM PRE by the balls in no time. The dumb pipes should stop trying to charge for music or other "enhanced experience" bullshit and think and act like WALL-MART. We are cheap; we are huge; we are everywhere; and you can't beat us, because we are some FUCKING CHEAP DUMB PIPES, and proud of it.

Re:If only

[fractoid]

Yep. They're just providers of the internets now, and they hate it. They've spent the last 100 years charging insane prices for specialised bandwidth. Now, this "internet" thing provides vastly higher data throughput because it needs to transmit things like porn and torrented episodes of Scrubs. They try and keep people thinking that "voice" and "text messages" are somehow special, and are different to all the other data, so they can charge more for them, but people are catching on. They're just going to have to move with the times.

Re:If only

[electrosoccertux]

Click.

Re:If only

[qw0ntum]

The problem of course is that until recently no one (or rather, a very small number of their customers) saw them as dumb pipes -- only with the rise of decently internet enabled phones has the idea started to occur to people in large numbers that "surprise! your phone is just like your computer". A surprisingly large number of people (in the US I think 80%+) don't use their phones for internet/data on a regular basis, so the idea that their voice bits are the same as their data bits isn't readily apparent. Mobile phone companies are kind of like the AOL-era ISPs, faced with a sudden, rapid change in the way users view their services, as well as a desire to create rich "walled garden" experiences for their subscribers. In my mind, the transition to a mobile company as a dumb pipe will happen eventually and unstoppably, it's just a matter of when.

To be fair, switching to "dumb pipe" providers is a fundamental change in their business model. While certainly not expensive enough to wholly justify their current margins, running the kind of networks these companies do is expensive, and it's a lot to ask for that kind of change to occur. Remember, it wasn't long ago that 3G was just something to rant about not having on /., and data access on phones is really just starting to take off.

Companies are coming around, I think, albeit slowly. Offering unlimited data plans is a really major step that fundamentally changes the way people use data on their phones. In time, that will become cheaper, mobile devices will become more ubiquitous and cheaper, and that's when I think you'll start to see more "dumb pipe" type plans being offerred. I don't see mobile companies and their current model completely going away for some time at least, due to the large portion of the market that still doesn't care about data. As more services are offered for mobile devices, however, I think that too will change.

Re:If only

[rachit]

If I had a few billion dollars lying around, I would start a new wireless provider or buy an existing one.

I'd just offer a pipe and sell bandwidth with packet shaping. I wouldn't care what you run on the network. I'd let vonage / skype, etc. sell their services and let whatever phone run on the network (that passes FCC regulation).

I don't know if its feasible, but i'd also offer two low level network calls to send packets at different QoS levels. Email, text messages, podcast syncing can go at a low QoS level while voice and active web browsing can go at a higher.

I'd still charge plenty for my service and I'm fairly certain I'd still get a ton of customers.

Re:If only

[Simple-Simmian]

The reason I don't use my cellphone for "internet" and email is because AT&T wants to rape me economically if I choose to do so. All this crap is useless if I have to pay 50 cents a min for it. Until AT&T loses the put a meter on it mentality I never will.

Re:If only

[moosesocks]

To be fair, cellular bandwidth is fundamentally limited, and has been extremely costly to deploy. It's not particularly surprising that the carriers want to recoup their investment.

Although I'll gladly admit that there is price-gouging going on, if the carriers offer unlimited cheap bandwidth, their networks will be quickly overwhelmed. As it currently stands, the carriers can utilize a large percentage of their capacity by charging high rates; what incentive is there for them to lower prices?

As technology improves, and competing companies become more ambitious, we'll likely see prices slowly begin to fall. It's all a matter of economics.

If we want companies to become more ambitious, the government should take steps to prevent monopolies from forming, and ban the absurd contract schemes that the cellular companies force on their customers.

Re:If only

[moosesocks]

The "dumb pipes" analogy doesn't work terribly well.

In the case of terrestrial phone and data lines, capacity can be improved either by improving bandwidth along existing lines, or installing additional lines.

In the case of cellular, this isn't so easy. The amount of usable EM spectrum is finite, and most speed improvements using the already-allocated frequencies will either break compatibility with existing devices, or require a reallocation of the spectrum. Improvements are possible, though they're much more difficult to implement.

A WiFi access point with lots of clients connected tends to be quite slow, regardless of the speed of the WAN that it's connected to. Cell towers operate on that same principle.

Re:If only

[mgblst]

Would you willingly take a paycut doing the same work?? No, then why the fuck do you think they are going to. They are going to string this out as long as they can, making loads of money all the time. What the fuck do you not understand about this...sure, we wan't it to be different, but it isn't and they won't be for as long as they can.

You writing in all caps isn't going to change that one little bit.

Mod me down all you want fuckers, but this is the truth.

Re:If only

[mgblst]

So if you had billions of dollars, you would not be interested in making more money, you would give it all away?? And not to the poor in Africa, to some fuckers wanting cheaper internet??

I think we can all guess why you don't, and never will have Billions of dollars.

Re:If only

[shutdown -p now]

The issue is not with carriers charging high rates for mobile internet. The issue is that, after charging those rates, they won't let me use the full extent of its capabilities (such as VoIP), because they provide other services which that would downcut (because the prices for those services are artificially inflated).

Re:If only

[digitalunity]

Indeed, cellular telephone rates are astounding. Want to send a few 100kB of text messages? That could cost you $5-10 depending on text length.

Want tethering? They will only activate that for you if you are on a business or premium($$$) plan, and you still pay per megabyte unless you pay for unlimited($$$$).

They gouge consumers any way they can and disallow anything that might cut into their profits.

Re:If only

[mako1138]

I think that's exactly what the WiMax company Clear is trying to be, though it's composed basically of entrenched players plus a few extras : Sprint Nextel, Comcast, Time Warner, Bright House, Google and Intel.

Re:If only

[digitalunity]

The EM spectrum isn't really finite, but certain frequency bands are better than others for short range high bandwidth communication.

Sure, it's possible to saturate a tower or even a whole swath of towers with excess traffic, but this imo is just evidence that we need more spectrum dedicated to Wifi and cellular services.

Re:If only

[Anonymous Coward]

Proposed company name: "Dumb Pipe Dreams"

Re:If only

[n3r0.m4dski11z]

"To be fair, cellular bandwidth is fundamentally limited, and has been extremely costly to deploy. It's not particularly surprising that the carriers want to recoup their investment."

I dont know much about cel tower placement, but if they are anything like the old school phone companies, their "pipes" run on public land. Im kinda tired of companies selling my assets back to me at a profit. They are not there to make money they are there to provide a service. Companies, especially mostly monopolies, do not have the right or my obligation, to profit!

Re:If only

[Anonymous Coward]

You would certainly be labeled "eccentric".

The "billion dollars" is what sets this kind of people apart from another kind - "crazy".

Re:If only

[russ1337]

The "dumb pipes" analogy doesn't work terribly well.

In the case of terrestrial phone and data lines, capacity can be improved either by improving bandwidth along existing lines, or installing additional lines.

In the case of cellular, this isn't so easy. The amount of usable EM spectrum is finite, and most speed improvements using the already-allocated frequencies will either break compatibility with existing devices, or require a reallocation of the spectrum. Improvements are possible, though they're much more difficult to implement.

A WiFi access point with lots of clients connected tends to be quite slow, regardless of the speed of the WAN that it's connected to. Cell towers operate on that same principle.

I understand what you are saying, but you didn't refute the "dumb pipes analogy", you just mentioned the difficulty with various types and speeds of pipe.

Wi-fi, WAN, G3, are all just 'dumb pipes' using different portions of the EM spectrum allowing them slightly different characteristics such as range and bandwidth, but they are still 'dumb'.

The GP argues "Offering unlimited data plans is a really major step that fundamentally changes the way people use data on their phones. In time, that will become cheaper, mobile devices will become more ubiquitous and cheaper, and that's when I think you'll start to see more "dumb pipe" type plans being offerred."

And I agree, the RF services the telco's provide will one day end up as transports for internet traffic - 'dumb pipes'.

Re:If only

[SanityInAnarchy]

Would you willingly take a paycut doing the same work?? No, then why the fuck do you think they are going to.

No one is suggesting that they (the people) have to take a pay cut. What we are suggesting is that they should catch up with the times, and provide more service in the first place.

Put another way: Working at a local ISP, you're probably doing about the same work for about the same amount of money now as you were five or ten years ago. And in that time, you've seen the bandwidth go from 56k to 100 mbits. Does it mean you're doing more work? No, you're doing less work and providing more value.

That's called productivity.

And sure, everyone would try to do less for the same amount of money if they could. That's called being lazy. I don't think it's a smart move in the long run, though -- as soon as someone is able to provide a dumb pipe at the same or a cheaper price than their charge-by-the-text-message pipes, they'll be forced to adapt or die. That's called competition.

sure, we wan't it to be different, but it isn't and they won't be for as long as they can.

"wan't"? Really?

But no, it's very much the same. If I'd been programming a couple decades ago, I'd probably be doing assembly, or a shiny new high-level language called C. Now, I work in Ruby, and consider C to be too low-level for most tasks.

Is that a pay cut? No, that's a productivity boost.

Sure, I could stick to some old app I wrote in assembly, and I could jack up the price and milk it for all I could -- charging thousands of dollars for each tiny little tweak. And it would work for awhile. Until all my customers went away to the guy down the block who rewrote it in a modern language, charged reasonably for real changes, and added config options so the clients didn't have to call him over every little thing.

Is the guy down the block taking a paycut, in that scenario? Not really. He's probably able to handle twice as many customers as a crusty old assembly guy is -- plus, the old assembler guy just lost all his business.

This doesn't always happen -- see COBOL. But it does happen often enough that it's not unreasonable to expect a similar change to be forced on cell providers.

Adapt or die. It's that simple.

You writing in all caps isn't going to change that one little bit.

You saying fuck every other sentence isn't going to change that one little bit.

Mod me down all you want fuckers, but this is the truth.

Translation: By posting "I know I'll get modded down", you hope to use reverse psychology on modders. What you are really saying is "I know I'm a troll, but please don't mod me down for it!"

Re:If only

[Chrisq]

So if you had billions of dollars, you would not be interested in making more money, you would give it all away?? And not to the poor in Africa, to some fuckers wanting cheaper internet??

I think we can all guess why you don't, and never will have Billions of dollars.

He didn't say he wouldn't be providing this super internet service in Africa.

Re:If only

[moosesocks]

My refutation lies in the assumption that you can always "lay more pipes" for terrestrial connections, while it's WAY more difficult to add capacity for wireless capacity, which is an inherently shared resource.

There are tricks that can be used to improve capacity, although none of them are particularly straightforward or inexpensive.

But, yeah. From the application layer, cell providers are indeed "dumb pipes." However, given the fact that bandwidth is a finite and scarce resource, it does make sense to bill based upon usage, even if that usage eventually gets measured in 'kilobytes' as opposed to 'minutes'

Re:If only

[StarkRG]

Although I'll gladly admit that there is price-gouging going on, if the carriers offer unlimited cheap bandwidth, their networks will be quickly overwhelmed. As it currently stands, the carriers can utilize a large percentage of their capacity by charging high rates; what incentive is there for them to lower prices?

I hate you for making me say this as I'm usually a critic of the way corporations misuse capitalism. However I don't think this would be considered price gouging. There's a limited supply and a high demand, this means that higher prices are not only acceptable, they're required.

Now if they were artificially limiting supply (like what oil companies do) I might have a problem with it. Unfortunately it does cost a lot to deploy cellular systems. Now, if we could have an extremely high capacity satellite communication network we might be able to deploy high speed wireless Internet much cheaper and faster. Of course this would need a huge amount of initial investment, cellular networks, while expensive, can be deployed in tiny sections, satellites have a lower area/$ cost, but cover a much larger area. Also it would require a major change in technology. You probably couldn't use standard cell phones and would probably require higher powered handsets, causing more cancer causing brain frizzle.

Re:If only

[moosesocks]

The price gouging I was referring to was more along the lines of the $0.20 per text message that most US providers charge.

Even with the limited capacity of cellular networks, it's blatant price-gouging.

Re:If only

[IamTheRealMike]

Gah, it's not about gouging. Why are you assuming every mobile operator in the world (cuz they practically all have the same policies) are Evil(tm)? Doesn't that strike you as rather unrealistic?

The reason tethering is disallowed is that it's the only business decision which makes sense. Simple.

Consider it from the operators perspective. They have finite mobile bandwidth, and they want to sell it to the mass market, ie, Joe Sixpack on his consumer phone. But they have a problem, the same problem landline ISPs have. Nobody, I repeat nobody understands what bandwidth is. Not Joe. Not you. Not me. It is sold to us in units of gigabytes/month, but what does that really mean? How many MP3s is that? How much web browsing? How many operating system updates? How many apps from the app store?

The fact is, consumer bandwith providers are in the unenviable position of selling a product nobody understands. They might as well sell bandwidth in pints for all the difference it'd make.

There is a simple solution for this problem - sell unlimited bandwidth plans (or plans so huge they're practically unlimited), and then use statistical models of how much bandwidth the average user gets through to set prices. Swallow the costs of the outliers and hope that on average your accounts end up a bit higher at the end of each month.

This business model works, and has allowed massive rollouts of internet connectivity across the world. There are a few things that break it. For mobile operators, tethering is one, because laptops will use so much more bandwidth than a mobile phone will. VoIP is the same - only a few people will use it, but those people will use the majority of the bandwidth dramatically raising costs for everyone. Rather than go back to selling people things they can't possibly understand, or boosting prices for everyone to subsidise the minority, they amend the contracts to read "unlimited, except no tethering and no voip" which is easy to grok even for Joe Sixpack.

If you were trying to sell bandwidth to the masses (and then deal with their billing enquiries!) you'd undoubtably do the exact same thing.

Re:If only

[GooberToo]

People will jailbreak, people will fork android

Or they can simply download the application from the author's website since Android is open. Unlike with the iPhone, you are free to install applications from any number of sources which include both third party websites and your own computer via USB cable.

Don't forget, Android Market is a defacto application repository provided by Google to, in theory, multiple carriers. As such, Google must maintain a relationship with carriers for Android to continue to grow as rapidly as it has. Thusly it is reasonable to assume Google needs to acquiesce to carrier demands on the Android Market. Google exercising their rights intelligently does not limit a user's ability to install third party applications. Rather, it only limits a user's ability to install third party applications from the Android Market.

If people were not so caught up in the locked-in mentality which is associated with the iPhone's limitations this story wouldn't even be news worthy. But, since people are so used to a single application source with such restricted rights on the iPhone, no one stops to consider if stories like these should be framed the same way for Android. Simply put, it is incorrect to frame the story as you might an iPhone story - its simply a different world.

Re:If only

[Baricom]

Let's assume for the moment that you're right.

Explain the cost of SMS.

Re:If only

[igaborf]

Satellite systems were tried (Google "Iridium") and found unable to compete economically with cellular except in locations where cellular is impractical. You need either a constellation of low-earth orbiting (LEO) satellites or you need to live with the quarter-second propagation delay (and higher power requirements) of geostationary satellites. Also, the larger footprint of satellite signals means much less frequency reuse is possible than with the cellular network, requiring massively more spectrum to accommodate the same number of users. So, no, satellites do not promise a cheaper, faster solution. They work OK for mass broadcasting, not for mass two-way comms.

Re:If only

[jacquesm]

more so when you realize that those messages ride for free on the back of status info that was going to be sent anyway... The only cost there was was to implement the software in the switch to route the messages the first time.

Re:If only

[smallfries]

I take it that Three don't operate in your area? They offer a range of services based on cheap bandwidth - but it is metered and you get silly charges if you go over. They provide a simple display of how much has been used that the customer can access and leave it up to them.

Their 3Pay dongle service has lots of different pricing plans, but the best low-usage one is 10euro for 1GB/data. The top-up lasts for 30 days. If you have higher usage they sell 5/10GB plans on a monthly basis.

The business model is based around being a cheap carrier of data. It means a reasonable price for permanent mobile "broadband"* connection. Of course, they got shafted in the 3G license bids and so are perpetually the underdog trying to beat the incumbent players in the market - maybe you don't have that type of competition where you are? They were the first company to effectively make all voice traffic free (by offering 500mins of xnet traffic for a stupidly low amount a month) and pushed the other carriers into going the same way.

I'm not sure about how their costs stack up across Europe, but in the UK they have one massive sunk cost (their license fee) that is so large in comparison to their running costs that they have to pile it high and sell it cheap. As a result don't expect functional support. Their Indian support lines are terrible, and I had to work out how to get their dongle working in the first place as it shipped with the wrong settings and it didn't feature on their tech support flowchart. But they currently sell mobiles with pre-configured Skype access that can be used effectively for free ... if people want a Walmart for mobile data they are positioned to provide it.

*100KB/s is better than my first broadband connection, but it's not the 3Mb/s promised for the tech.

Re:If only

[smallfries]

I don't normally post advert links to slashdot, but if cellular adoption trends stay the same then you should have deals like this in the US in 2-3 years. That 10/month top-up they require, is just enough to pay for 1GB/30 days, or if you want more bandwidth it's 25/month for 10GB. Just to let you drool a bit...

Re:If only

[raynet]

And do you know how much that software costs? Back in the day, there was only couple vendors offering such thing, and it has an annual license fee using formula of * * * so it got very expensive very soon, especially as the telco had to buy longer message queue lengths to survive xmas and other occasions when the whole country would me SMSing themselves. I don't know if today there are multiple vendors selling these things, if there are, then perhaps the price has gone down.

Re:If only

[raynet]

Grrr.. wrote the message, saw that the formula was missing due to use of > < and meant to press edit, pressed submit instead:

And do you know how much that software costs? Back in the day, there was only couple vendors offering such thing, and it has an annual license fee using formula of [basefee] * [messages per second] * [message queue size] + [profit] so it got very expensive very soon, especially as the telco had to buy longer message queue lengths to survive xmas and other occasions when the whole country would me SMSing themselves. I don't know if today there are multiple vendors selling these things, if there are, then perhaps the price has gone down.

Re:If only

[Hope Thelps]

So if you had billions of dollars, you would not be interested in making more money, you would give it all away??

He didn't say he didn't see this as a way of making money. Quite the opposite : "I'd still charge plenty for my service and I'm fairly certain I'd still get a ton of customers."

Maybe his plan wouldn't make him money (failed businesses are hardly uncommon) but your claim that he wouldn't be trying to make more money looks like something you just made up. How about discussing the actual flaws in the product he proposes?

Re:If only

[IamTheRealMike]

I wasn't attempting to explain the cost of SMS which I agree is too high. Your point is irrelevant to mine.

Re:If only

[Registered Coward v2]

Let's assume for the moment that you're right.

Explain the cost of SMS.

It's a popular service that people will pay for; so it's priced accordingly. What counts is what people are willing to pay, not what it costs to provide or produce it.

Re:If only

[BikeHelmet]

Let's assume for the moment that you're right.

Explain the cost of SMS.

That one's easy.

Absolutely free text messages would result in people using them for everything, including massive file transfers. (hey, people use gmail as a storage drive. I can't wait for textmsg2avi to come out. :P )

Text messages save them bandwidth, but also costs them their bread and butter phone calls, so when you pair that with the huge negative that free text messages would create, it's obvious they have to charge for them.

I still think they charge way too much, though. You should be granted something like 100 free text messages per day - plenty for average use, but not enough to abuse them. Or they could have reasonable rates like $0.01 per 25 text-messages. (clumps, reset daily)

Re:If only

[Chlorine Trifluoride]

That's right. No one is forcing you to buy all of your apps from the Android Store.

Re:If only

[tyrione]

To be fair, cellular bandwidth is fundamentally limited, and has been extremely costly to deploy. It's not particularly surprising that the carriers want to recoup their investment.

Although I'll gladly admit that there is price-gouging going on, if the carriers offer unlimited cheap bandwidth, their networks will be quickly overwhelmed. As it currently stands, the carriers can utilize a large percentage of their capacity by charging high rates; what incentive is there for them to lower prices?

As technology improves, and competing companies become more ambitious, we'll likely see prices slowly begin to fall. It's all a matter of economics.

If we want companies to become more ambitious, the government should take steps to prevent monopolies from forming, and ban the absurd contract schemes that the cellular companies force on their customers.

Last I checked they were given over $200 Billion to deploy their networks, by our taxpayer dollars. I want my ROI.

Re:If only

[IamTheRealMike]

Yeah, great. So what happens when people do things that use lots of bandwidth without realising it? They get absurdly big charges. That leads to stories like this one. Your argument is basically, if you have crappy customer service, it's OK to set bandwidth caps and allow tethering because you don't care if the customer gets screwed anyway. Wonderful.

Re:If only

[IamTheRealMike]

This is already tried for landline ISPs. Your business would encounter problems after people started encrypting everything to avoid packet shaping, then using BitTorrent to saturate your uplinks.

Re:If only

[knarf]

That's a lot of 'fuck' you seem to need to explain your convictions, it almost sounds like your defending your religion or some other deeply ingrained dogma. You do realise that there is more in the world to care for than the love of money, don't you?

And yes, if I had more pay than I need and I liked my work I'd be willing to take a pay cut to do the same. The problem with that is that when confronted with people who share your attitude my pay would be cut while their pay would be raised, and that is not something I care for. Share and share alike, not grab all you can.

Re:If only

[crawling_chaos]

No one is suggesting that they (the people) have to take a pay cut

Bull. To keep their jobs they have to deliver the same margins, or the investors will punish them. That means that if they offer something that costs more for a lower price, jobs have to go and/or salaries have to go down. They aren't going to make it up in volume.

Landline internet providers struggle with this, and their cost of expansion to accommodate unlimited service is trivial compared to what a wireless carrier has to build out. Information may want to be free, but copper and silicon most assuredly don't. Basic economics, I'm afraid. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

Re:If only

[asdf7890]

Gah, it's not about gouging. Why are you assuming every mobile operator in the world (cuz they practically all have the same policies) are Evil(tm)? Doesn't that strike you as rather unrealistic? The reason tethering is disallowed is that it's the only business decision which makes sense. Simple.

Correct, it is the only decision that makes sense when you have sold "unlimited Internet through your phone" without stating any restrictions clearly to the buyer, and then can not provide it because you don't have enough Internet to go around if people use it in one of the ways your advertising has implied that they can.

Unfortunately this isn't going to stop happening any time soon because if a provider advertises more "honestly" (by not using the work "unlimited" like it is going out of fashion and/or making sure limits like "no tethering" are at least mentioned in promotional materials) they will look uncompetitive to the slime that is the general public (or just more complicated, which for a service aimed at the general public can easily kill sales) and will therefore lose business.

I don't know about the rest of the world, but the mobile market over here (UK) is trying to separate out the normal phone users and Internet users, so that you end up having two devices (your phone for calls, texts, and a few mobile optimised web pages and a USB cellular modem for your laptop/other) and two price plans (which may well mean two 18-month+ monthly-billed contracts). Personally I prefer the convenience of one device (the phone) through which I can connect my laptop via bluetooth on the few occasions that I need to, but they don't make a point of telling people they can do that because of th epotential to sell an extra device+contract. In fact some operators disable the relevant parts of the bluetooth stack in their custom phone firmwares so you can't use tethering unless you bought it direct or have had it unlocked and re-flashed with standard firmware. Oddly enough, they never advertise the fact that they have disabled parts of the device they are trying to sell to you...

Re:If only

[dangitman]

...sure, we wan't it to be different,

We "waaaa not" it to be different? What the hell does that mean?

Re:If only

[pbhj]

Explain the [high] cost of SMS.

It's because of the huge amounts of data, err .... it's because of the need to communicate real-time, err ... it's the customer service reps reading the text off one screen and typing it on to the other, yep that must be it!

Re:If only

[Hognoxious]

Absolutely free text messages would result in people using them for everything, including massive file transfers.

160 bytes is massive?

Re:If only

[Anonymous Coward]

If they haven't coded their own or found an alternative with a better license by now they deserve to eat the cost. If they can just pass the costs on to the customers then where's the incentive to reduce those costs?

Re:If only

[pbhj]

Would you willingly take a paycut doing the same work??

But what does a mobile phone network do in it's spare time? Perhaps the cell basestations would rather time off than working 24-7 ...? ;0)

Re:If only

[Hognoxious]

Consider it from the operators perspective. They have finite mobile bandwidth [...] There is a simple solution for this problem - sell unlimited bandwidth plans (or plans so huge they're practically unlimited), and then use statistical models of how much bandwidth the average user gets through to set prices.

One, you can only have that data retrospectively, so it's no use for setting prices which needs to be done in advance.

Two, if it's unlimited people will "waste" it. This will clog the network up making it unusable for everyone. A cap and/or surcharge discourages people from leaving streamed video on all day even when you're not watching it.

Three, as you yourself pointed out, the supply isn't unlimited. However bad yu think their business model is, I don't see how it's better to offer an unlimited amount for sale when you know the supply is constrained.

Re:If only

[CAIMLAS]

The fact is, consumer bandwith providers are in the unenviable position of selling a product nobody understands. They might as well sell bandwidth in pints for all the difference it'd make.

That does not relate one iota to cellular.

Cellular has a different bandwidth problem than landlines: they only have to pipe bandwidth between distribution points (ie cell towers) or other major points of connectivity, and provide those cell towers. This bandwidth is trivially priced when you consider that it's being piped to a phone, and many people are paying close to $100 a month for a plan just to be able to get audio, video, basic pictures, and email on their phone for a couple tens of hours a month for when they're bored. (IE, in aggregate, less data than a person could pull down on dialup in '99 in the period of a month, for $10/month).

now, those cell towers are a sunk cost: they were paid for when they went in. Anything over and beyond their customer base on the day those new towers went in is gravy. Yes, they'd like to make money - and they will continue to make money if they at least maintain subscription rates.

The short of the long of it is that providers aren't selling bandwidth; they're selling phone service, data service, MP3s, software, etc. - and then charging you double for the ability to download said things. But you're paying for a lot more than you get.

Hell, satellite internet access in the late 1990s cost less than a "full" cellular plan does now, and was (iirc) comparable in terms of bandwidth. And that was a service people only got when they wanted to download a lot of stuff, quickly. I'm pretty certain if a company can launch a couple dozen or so objects into space that cell providers can handle better bandwidth.

I mean, shit. You've got cell providers in the darkest parts of Africa. If that's viable, they could at least make things viable here.

Re:If only

[BlackCreek]

That is absolutely right on the spot.

I am always amazed by the amount of intelligent, highly educated adults that fail to grasp that the cost of goods is always as high as people can be convinced to pay for it.

A second one that always puzzles me are all the people that fail to grasp that high quality does not implies high price, specially when dealing with mass produced goods (which is pretty much anything nowadays).

Re:If only

[CAIMLAS]

Exactly.

It used to be possible (at least on Verizon) to call up a number from a phone and get a plain vanilla DUN connection - nothing too complex, but enough to get something like weather or news at 14.4kbps speeds.

However, when they went to 3G (EVDO) that became impossible. Trying to do so is now a data fee (because the old inverface is gone, and a lot of people used it).

But yet, there is still no way to reasonable get data onto a capable phone, short of paying $50 on top of the base phone service, and then likely half a dozen other hidden charges.

Can I please just have a "basic data" plan? You know, limit my data rate to something slightly tedious so I'm not tempted to put a bittorrent client on my phone.

Or maybe make it so I can transmit only so much data per day, and then cut me off (like many ISPs would do back in the 1990s - though on a monthly basis). Enough of this "I'm sorry, I know your 5-year-old got ahold of your phone but we're still going to have to charge you the $45 in data charges. But we'll give you a $15 credit to next month's bill" bullshit. They all do it, because they know they'll get away with it: they're big and they don't give a damn, they want the profit. I'm not sure what happened in the last 15 years, but companies didn't have this much disdain for their customers back then.

Re:If only

[Hognoxious]

now, those cell towers are a sunk cost: they were paid for when they went in.

You don't know that. The company could well have installed them using borrowed money.

And a sunk cost doesn't mean you can ignore it in terms of analysing profitability.

Re:If only

[GooberToo]

Exactly right. There are several popular sites hoping to help here with alternative markets. SlideMe is likely the closest alternative. But if you check you'll find there is something like a half dozen alternatives available and even then authors are completely free to host/push/provide applications from their own websites.

Options galore for sure.

Re:If only

[ElSupreme]

Yeah my tethering app (this one actually) I got from his website. It was actually easier than the app store since I already had the website open.

And T-Mobile won't ever be able to tell I am tethering, unless I start downloading movies or running a bit torrent app on my 3G connection.

Now all I need is a 'WiFi Hotspot' sticker for my car. So you can catch the 80mph internet.

Re:If only

[Anonymous Coward]

The EM spectrum isn't really finite

The key word was "usable". Learn to read, fucktard.

Re:If only

[aurispector]

Here's the link for a freeware tethering app for just about all mobile os's including android. You install it on your pc while your phone is attached and it automatically sets itself up. Then you run the app on your phone and pc and you're ready to go. I've been using it for a few days without trouble and it beats the living hell out of tetherbot.

http://www.junefabrics.com/android/index.php

Tethering has turned into a must have for me and it's baffling why the telcos aren't exploiting this market.

Re:If only

[Dog-Cow]

Many towers are placed on private property and the phone/cellular company pays for that access. I imagine that they also pay the municipality that owns any public land that they use as well.

Re:If only

[smallfries]

That's not my argument in the slightest. Your post claimed that customers were not technically sophisticated enough to be sold a service of cheap bandwidth in exchange for caps. I'm giving you a concrete example of exactly that market.

The rest of your reply is just complete bollocks and has no relation to any point that I made.

Re:If only

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry for posting AC but I had to chime in. The reason there's a cost for text messages at all is because most if not all text messages have to carry over someone else's network in order to reach their recipient. If you think that there's some massive spiderwork of any single carrier's network across the world, you're kidding yourself and should be put down NOW. So $0.05 to cross 1/2 a world and 20 networks isn't a bad deal. IMHO in network texts(as most phone calls are) should be free.

Re:If only

[tiananmen tank man]

But text messages are almost free in cost to the carriers. What you just said in a long winded way is: usage of sensibly priced sms will cut into their profitable sales of audio/voice transmissions

Re:If only

[JayJay.br]

Mod parent +10. That couldn't be more true.

On a lighter side: are dumb fucking pipes some kind of pipes that fuck dumb people?

Because that would mean that carriers are really out to fuck dumb people... oh wait, they are, nevermind.

Re:If only

[TheRaven64]

I read the hype surrounding Iridium at the launch, and remember that it was supposed to be able to deliver 2Mb/s per square meter of the Earth's surface. Not great for people in blocks of flats, but pretty good by mobile standards. Unfortunately, the high cost of launching all of the satellites meant that they had to charge unaffordable rates to recoup the initial investment, and failed to get enough customers to do so.

Re:If only

[ShieldW0lf]

Why are you assuming every mobile operator in the world (cuz they practically all have the same policies) are Evil(tm)? Doesn't that strike you as rather unrealistic?

I blame it on Ayn Rand, personally. She made evil sound noble.

Re:If only

[TheRaven64]

You're assuming that people will be willing to keep paying. I've just lost my phone, and the cheap replacement I bought supports SIP and WiFi. This means, when I am in my home or near an access point elsewhere, my outgoing calls will be routed through the WiFi network and a third-party SIP provider. SIP isn't trivial to configure, but a lot of new phones are now coming with Skype installed, and you can buy phones with pre-configured SIP from the people who operate SIP to POTS gateways. If the other person has a SIP phone as well, then the call costs nothing over WiF.

If the mobile operators had cheap data plans, then they could bill me for carrying the data, just not for the termination. Because they price themselves out of the market, they get neither in an increasing number of cases. Ironically, they are now offering quite reasonable data plans, but not on phones; only if you use them with a HSPA dongle. It amazes me that they aren't pushing tethering, since it lets them sell multiple services (voice and data) to their existing customers with their existing equipment.

Re:If only

[Anonymous Coward]

Want tethering? They will only activate that for you if you are on a business or premium($$$) plan, and you still pay per megabyte unless you pay for unlimited($$$$).

You would prefer to pay by the minute?

Re:If only

[Dragonslicer]

1500 bytes is massive?

Re:If only

[dilvish_the_damned]

Whe you say "selling a product nobody understands" and "I repeat nobody understands what bandwidth is. Not Joe. Not you. Not me." I can't help but think you don't understand what bandwidth is.

Do you work for a telco?

Re:If only

[Zakabog]

Absolutely free text messages would result in people using them for everything, including massive file transfers. (hey, people use gmail as a storage drive. I can't wait for textmsg2avi to come out. :P )

I've had absolutely free text messaging for a few years now, I'm fairly certain every carrier offers it as an option unless maybe you're on a prepaid plan or something (though they could also offer unlimited texting, I'm not sure as I never had a prepaid plan.)

Re:If only

[Directrix1]

Exactly. Where are my mod points when I need them.

Re:If only

[IamTheRealMike]

Yes, if you want to purchase/sell a USB tethering dongle with a very expensive metered plan then you accept the associated billing problems and unhappy customers who go over the limit. That's not a mass market product though.

Re:If only

[IamTheRealMike]

I'm pretty sure the contracts you sign mention the lack of support for tethering. At least mine did. And yes the USB dongle approach is another way to do it because that way only people who want tethering pay the higher price for it. In theory you could do the same with phones but I guess it's too hard for operators to enable/disable tethering remotely depending on billing plan in a way that works across handsets and all operators.

Re:If only

[Civil_Disobedient]

I can't wait for textmsg2avi to come out.

It's been out for a while.

Re:If only

[IamTheRealMike]

They also need to be powered, upgraded to the newest kit and spectrum needs to be licensed. I agree, that's an overly simplistic analysis.

Re:If only

[Anonymous Coward]

All of the tethering applications require you to have root on your phone. If you've got a G1 running recent firmware, chances are you don't have root as there's currently no hack for the recent versions.

Re:If only

[_egg]

Why would you promote PdaNet when there are now two full-featured, easy-to-use, *free* alternatives that don't require a USB connection?!

WiFi Tether for Android
http://code.google.com/p/android-wifi-tether

aNetShare
http://android.a0soft.com/?url=aNetShare.htm

(If I could post QR codes here, I would...)

Re:If only

[Anonymous Coward]

reading comprehension is not your strong point is it ?

Re:If only

[CompMD]

NO.

SMS does not run over high bandwidth links. On GSM based systems, SMS runs over GSM or GPRS, not HSDPA. On CDMA based systems, SMS runs over a 1xRTT paging channel. These are low bandwidth connections. Its an old protocol that the carriers have no desire to update so long as they can keep charging ridiculous rates.

There won't be any sort of data transfer over SMS, its just not possible given the infrastructure for SMS.

Re:If only

[Anonymous Coward]

I always though this was a great article,
explains that Text Messaging is 4 times more expensive then transmitting the same amount of data from the Hubble.

http://www.physorg.com/news129793047.html

Re:If only

[Sloppy]

Tethering means using one device as a router for some other device(s). Why they needed a new word for that, is totally beyond me. I guess "network" and "route" aren't cool words anymore; they're too Speak-1.0.

Re:If only

[darthyoshiboy]

That one's easy.

Absolutely free text messages would result in people using them for everything, including massive file transfers. (hey, people use gmail as a storage drive. I can't wait for textmsg2avi to come out. :P )

Text messages save them bandwidth, but also costs them their bread and butter phone calls, so when you pair that with the huge negative that free text messages would create, it's obvious they have to charge for them.

I still think they charge way too much, though. You should be granted something like 100 free text messages per day - plenty for average use, but not enough to abuse them. Or they could have reasonable rates like $0.01 per 25 text-messages. (clumps, reset daily)

Except that SMS costs the provider nothing, thought we covered that here already. If you don't remember, have a quick refresher here: http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/12/text-messages-c.html

An SMS doesn't even take any bandwidth away from the regular channels which carry calls: That's why a message is so limited in length: it must not exceed the length of the message used for internal communication between tower and handset to set up a call. The channel uses space whether or not a text message is inserted.

The space is being used one way or another, it's no skin off their backs to have it carry a message or not. The fact that they charge or limit SMS at all is an insult. MMS are another matter.

Re:If only

[Golddess]

You seem to be missing something though. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding tethering. But I was under the impression that all tethering does is allow you to do on your laptop what you can already do on your phone. You're already paying for cellular access to the internet, the only thing the tethering does is shift which device you access it from.

Re:If only

[ivan256]

To be fair, the extreme deployment cost for cellular bandwidth is largely due to these same companies bidding up the license fees on the expectation that they'd be able to gouge their customers by charging thousands of times extra for the lowest bandwidth services.

Re:If only

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Companies are coming around, I think, albeit slowly. Offering unlimited data plans is a really major step that fundamentally changes the way people use data on their phone

Heh - this is what's most frustrating. I have "unlimited data transfer" plan for $30/month with AT&T, but if I tether, I'm in violation of the TOS. My other other option is to pay for a tethering plan - which is $70/month and limits me to 5GB.

So on the one hand they have a plan they call "unlimited" which really means "unlimited transfer within a strict set of limitations" - clearly they don't expect it to be used for very much data transfer. To make sure of that, they put fine print in their TOS that prevents me from using it for anything practical - while conveniently offering me a severely capped plan at over twice the price.

Re:If only

[ivan256]

Define "popular".

Supply of text-messaging bandwidth across several providers is several orders of magnitude higher than demand. If you compare usage of the service to capacity, it doesn't seem all that popular. Usage is a drop in the ocean.

The only possible explanation for the price of text messaging in the US is collusion. It would simply be too profitable to lure customers from a competing carrier by giving away what you essentially get for free to otherwise explain why none of the major providers have reasonable SMS rates. They understand that it would lead to a price war and eliminate SMS as a profit center, so they collude not to do it.

Re:If only

[Anonymous Coward]

re: your sig.

my best friend's dad was railroaded by corrupt police and spent over 20 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit. with the death penalty there would have been no chance for justice for him at all.

the desire for vengeance is very human, however our institutions of justice should be above that. like you, i used to be pro-death penalty but the realities of life made me reevaluate that stance. life is not black and white, and we shouldn't make an irrevocable decision based on shades of gray. i hope that you don't take this as a flame, it isn't meant to be. i was just giving you a little food for thought.

Re:If only

[GameMaster]

I'm gonna have to call shenanigans on that explanation. We already have, perfectly valid, examples of what you're describing as an unrealistic business model for them. Those examples are electrical utilities, natural gas utilities, and municipal water (in places that meter it). Each of those services provide a product that is measured in what, to the consumer, is likely to be abstract units (kWh, gallons, etc.) and service devices for which the user, probably, has a poor idea of their consumption rate.

How many people really know how much power their refrigerator, computer, electric range, or air conditioner consume? It's not necessary for them to know the specifics as they get a general idea of which items use the most power/aren't necessities and limit the use of them if their electric bills start to sky-rocket.

The reason it's clear that cellphone companies are price gouging can be seen when you break down the cost per Kilobit of things like SMS and voice services versus other forms of bandwidth services (and, no, you don't just get to exempt SMS costs from whether or not the cellphone companies are gouging). Even compared to cellular internet rates, they're so high they should be criminal. This is the exact opposite of what you were describing. They aren't doing this to protect the users from confusion about what bandwidth is, they're using that confusion to rob people blind. Another great example of this can be seen in the absurd charges for bandwidth over your plan cap? When was the last time you saw the kWh rate for electricity jump by ~1000% (rough estimate based on what I know of plans from companies like Verizon) when you went over a set cap on electricity usage for the month? I can understand a little bit of a premium if the, absolutely have to, have a cap system at all but the numbers here are pure abuse.

What it comes down to, is that the cellphone industry in the US seems to act as a form of cartel (whether intentionally, or not). They use abusive policies and, in many cases, modified firmware to produce artificial vendor lock-in and arbitrarily inflated prices for "premium services". This is possible, predominantly, because they have a government enforced monopoly on the limited radio bands and, in many places, municipal easements needed to install cellphone towers. The proper response is that with this kind of, artificial, government barrier to competition they should be regulated the same way any other public utility is. The same goes for cable/ADSL ISPs who benefit even more from limited municipal easements in order to lay down their lines and install nodes.

Re:If only

[mythandros]

The proliferation of wireless access points open up possibilities that provide alternatives not only to cellular internet access but also to cellular voice communication. It may take 10 or 15 years (which means all you instant-gratification types are going to have to suck it up and deal) but I can see this being a viable alternative. When I'm sitting at my computer in my office, I get calls but they're always over ventrilo, skype, or gmail. If I have my laptop with me, I can video conference over gmail or skype. The point is that I don't need my land line or cell phone to do this. Once city-wide wifi initiatives (or even open APs) start taking off, I'll be able to take calls on my laptop in the park. Once wireless APs in most cities have sufficient coverage, how long do you think it's going to be until someone starts selling cell phone sized devices that do nothing but wifi communication? The whole point is that cellular is creating opportunities for competition in urban environments and the user always benefits from competition. Imagine what would happen socially if "cellular" became equated with rural settings?

Re:If only

[Registered Coward v2]

Define "popular".

Supply of text-messaging bandwidth across several providers is several orders of magnitude higher than demand. If you compare usage of the service to capacity, it doesn't seem all that popular. Usage is a drop in the ocean.

By your argument, cell phones aren't popular because a lot of bandwidth goes unused; nor is internet access because there is also a lot of unused bandwidth and dark fiber available. However, when you look at percentages of people using certain services I'd say cell phones; internet access and messaging are all popular services.

The only possible explanation for the price of text messaging in the US is collusion. It would simply be too profitable to lure customers from a competing carrier by giving away what you essentially get for free to otherwise explain why none of the major providers have reasonable SMS rates. They understand that it would lead to a price war and eliminate SMS as a profit center, so they collude not to do it.

It's amazing that people think simply because something has a low cost to produce it should be cheap. Cell phone companies charge because people will pay for a service; and they will charge what the market will bear to get the most profit from what they sell.

Just because they chose not to start a price war doesn't mean they collude. They can independently decide not to lower prices and that's quite legal; they realize that to stop charging for text messages would just mean lower revenue for everyone in the end and probably no change in their overall customer numbers. As a result, engaging in a price war is counter productive; instead they differentiate by phone offerings and service claims. At any rate, good business decisions do not require collusion; simply common sense and reasonable competitors.

Re:If only

[phrend]

I hate the relatively high cost of SMS messages too, but isn't it possible that the mobile providers would have to charge higher fees for their other voice/data services if they weren't milking the SMS cow...? Don't other companies subsidize the costs of some products/services by raising the price of products/services that people are willing to pay more for?

Re:If only

[greenbird]

To be fair, cellular bandwidth is fundamentally limited, and has been extremely costly to deploy. It's not particularly surprising that the carriers want to recoup their investment.

Except the bandwidth bottlenecks with cellular come from having a single T1 line going to each cell tower rather than limits between the tower and the phone. The radio technology has far surpassed that constraint.

As technology improves, and competing companies become more ambitious, we'll likely see prices slowly begin to fall. It's all a matter of economics.

Technology isn't the problem. Monopoly (or oligarchical) control is. Why actually run fiber to the towers when they can charge outrageous prices to keep profits up and bandwidth usage down while not having to spend a dime on infrastructure? That's why the US is so far behind the rest of the world in broadband speed and access.

Re:If only

[shutdown -p now]

I am always amazed by the amount of intelligent, highly educated adults that fail to grasp that the cost of goods is always as high as people can be convinced to pay for it.

We don't fail to grasp it. We understand how it works perfectly well, we just happen to name it what it is in practice; namely, "price gouging". It is perfectly legal, sure; it doesn't make it ethical. Frankly, selling anything at 1000%+ profit isn't - it just means that the buyer is either desperate enough, or ignorant enough, and the seller is abusing that.

Re:If only

[n1ckml007]

Nobody, I repeat nobody understands what bandwidth is. Not Joe. Not you. Not me.

Mike, if that's you're real name? I *think* you may be wrong that nobody on /. knows what bandwidth is...

Re:If only

[greenbird]

Now if they were artificially limiting supply (like what oil companies do) I might have a problem with it.

They are. The limits are due to a single T1 running to every cell tower. The radio technology has surpassed this limit.

Why actually run fiber to the towers when they can charge outrageous prices to keep profits up and bandwidth usage down while not having to spend a dime on infrastructure?

Re:If only

[nobodyknowsimageek]

Let's assume for the moment that you're right.

Explain the cost of SMS.

It's a popular service that people will pay for; so it's priced accordingly. What counts is what people are willing to pay, not what it costs to provide or produce it.

This is exactly correct. For those of you who find this confusing or distasteful, welcome to Capitalism(tm).

Re:If only

[greenbird]

In the case of cellular, this isn't so easy. The amount of usable EM spectrum is finite, and most speed improvements using the already-allocated frequencies will either break compatibility with existing devices, or require a reallocation of the spectrum. Improvements are possible, though they're much more difficult to implement.

I'm tired of retyping it. If your argument was valid why does the rest of the civilized world have much better and cheaper cellular broadband? Is there more spectrum in Europe and Japan?

Re:If only

[asdf7890]

I'm pretty sure the contracts you sign mention the lack of support for tethering.

They definitely do, and I have made sure that I've read the appropriate parts of my agreement (though parts of that state that they can essentially change it when-ever they like...), but that doesn't make the way things are sold right. They loudly sell "unlimited this" and "unrestricted that" not "unlimited except limits laid down in clause 523 of your contract" or "unrestricted as long as you stick to using the facility in a restricted number of ways".

I guess it's too hard for operators to enable/disable tethering remotely depending on billing plan

They would not need to if things were more honestly sold though. If I pay for XXMb of Internet access via my phone, I expect to be able to use that much Internet access via my phone and connecting laptop to the phone counts (in my mind) as accessing the Internet via my phone. But as I said above, none of them will become more honest because it would be commercial suicide - the unwashed masses will see the less honest as offering a better deal even though it is probably the same deal (or worse) with extra spin added, because the unwashed masses won't even think to look into the small print until they hit a problem by which time the contract is signed and they are stuck.

Google's position is not really in their control on this one though. If they allow a tethering application into the default marketplace then the network operators will never offer Android based phones because they don't want their users to have easy access to the facility.

Re:If only

[IamTheRealMike]

I work for a large internet company and definitely understand what bandwidth is. That doesn't mean I can divine how much my phone is going to use without some tricky mental arithmetic and a deep knowledge of how all the software I run works. I could measure it too, but I use an Android phone which updates itself over the air, and I don't know when or how big those updates are. So I can never really win.

Re:If only

[IamTheRealMike]

It's very hard to use dramatically more electricity than your neighbour, if you try various fuses will blow. It's very easy to use dramatically more bandwidth than your neighbour, just fire up BitTorrent. If I could accidentally pull down a couple of megawatts by plugging in the wrong toaster, you'd see similar policies from electricity companies (eg "unlimited" plans that ban you from plugging in certain types of devices).

Re:If only

[X0563511]

When you take several hundred or more of them, yes.

Go peek at alt.binaries on usenet. You'll see how it works.

Re:If only

[Anonymous Coward]

If I had a few billion dollars lying around, I would start a new wireless provider or buy an existing one.

No you wouldn't, you lying cunt.

Re:If only

[bnenning]

I am always amazed by the amount of intelligent, highly educated adults that fail to grasp that the cost of goods is always as high as people can be convinced to pay for it.

Not in the presence of competition. We've established that Americans will pay $4/gallon for gasoline and make only slight cutbacks in driving. But because gas stations are highly competitive, the price gets driven down to the actual cost plus a small profit. On the other hand, the telecoms are an oligopoly and largely immune from competition.

Re:If only

[edittard]

how long do you think it's going to be until someone starts selling cell phone sized devices that do nothing but wifi communication?

I'd say about minus 2 years.

Re:If only

[blackest_k]

yeah that makes perfect sense apart from mobile carriers are selling usb dongles to plug into your laptop and give you a hspda connection. What's the difference between tethering a phone and using the usb dongle?

Re:If only

[blackest_k]

might come as a surprise but there tends to be more cellular phone masts in higher density usage area's, Too many callers they split the cell and lower the power. Thats the cell bit in cell phone

Re:If only

[ilo.v]

What counts is what people are willing to pay, not what it costs to provide or produce it.

Only if you are dealing with a monopoly or an oligopoly. (Which is the case here). In a free market, competition between providers would force them to lower the price to "cost of providing plus a reasonable profit."

Re:If only

[Registered Coward v2]

What counts is what people are willing to pay, not what it costs to provide or produce it.

Only if you are dealing with a monopoly or an oligopoly. (Which is the case here). In a free market, competition between providers would force them to lower the price to "cost of providing plus a reasonable profit."

You are assuming that it is an undifferentiated or commodity market an that all sellers are price takers. That is not the case here; the competitors differentiate in an attempt to maintain prices. Given that there are a number of choices that are cheaper than the big 3, and prices have dropped considerably for cell phone plans, I contend that there is enough competition to consider this a free market.

A fair profit is whatever the market will bear; especially for a non-essential product such as a cell phone.

Re:If only

[SanityInAnarchy]

Bull. To keep their jobs they have to deliver the same margins, or the investors will punish them.

That assumes that there are investors, and that the same margins are being applied over the same number of people.

That means that if they offer something that costs more for a lower price, jobs have to go and/or salaries have to go down. They aren't going to make it up in volume.

They are if the volume goes away -- if company B provides a more costly service than company A, at a lower price, company B's investors will be patting them on the back as customers flock to them, and company A's investors will want to know why they're losing customers.

Eventually, company A will be forced to adapt or die. If they can't adapt, well, poor buggy-whip manufacturers. Boo fucking hoo.

Landline internet providers struggle with this,

Bullshit. Landline providers "struggle" with how to squeeze the most they can out of what they have, rather than expanding. The ones that actually do expand find that things like net neutrality really aren't an issue.

Information may want to be free, but copper and silicon most assuredly don't.

No, but they do want to get cheaper all the time -- which is also basic economics.

No, there's no such thing as a free lunch. So why should an operator of an antiquated cell network expect a free lunch?

Re:If only

[ilo.v]

You are assuming that it is an undifferentiated or commodity market an that all sellers are price takers. That is not the case here; the competitors differentiate in an attempt to maintain prices

I'm talking specifically about SMS, which was the topic of the parent post. The service is essentially identical between providers. Yes, there is a difference in coverage area, so I would be fine with the price being Verizon > ATT > T-Mobile/Sprint > MetroPCS (or whatever) That is not what we see, though. More importantly, everyone recently DOUBLED their per-SMS fee. There is no cost of service justification for the price increase, and no "supplier differentiation" that suddenly applied to all of them. It is clearly the act of an oligopoly.

Re:If only

[GameMaster]

Actually, that's not true. I can, for an added fee, have the power company install beefier equipment that would allow me to install more zones (breakers) in my house or higher amperage zones/sockets. It just isn't common, as most people don't have a need for that much power.

Furthermore, I can leave all the appliances/lights in my house on 24/7 and, I assure you, I'll be using dramatically more power than my neighbor (unless he's an idiot too). A more practical example might be someone who runs a cluster of PCs for folding@home or something like it. They will be using much more power than their neighbors. The difference, is that power companies have been regulated for so long that they've been requires to, responsibly, upgrade their power grids with enough over-coverage that lot's of people can consume large amounts of power without impacting their neighbors. When they do, it's called a brownout or blackout and is the equivalent of the cable ISP overloading your local node or the neighbor kid running an open torrent feed. Thereâ(TM)s none of the abusive oversell you see in cable ISPs or which youâ(TM)re alluding to in cell phone ISPs.

The real difference between cell phone companies, as they are now, and public utilities like the electric company is that the electric company doesnâ(TM)t give a crap what I connect my power to (and they shouldnâ(TM)t). I could run an extension cord to my neighborâ(TM)s apartment and run all his appliances/lights and, as long as Iâ(TM)m not wiring it up in a way that will risk destroying their equipment, they wonâ(TM)t care (the local safety inspector might care, but thatâ(TM)s a separate issue). They know that theyâ(TM)ve been honest with their customers (most likely because theyâ(TM)re forced to be through government regulation) and that theyâ(TM)ve built their infrastructure right such that I can use all the power my fuses can handle 24/7 without impacting the local grid. They donâ(TM)t try to run scams like telling me that power to my AC or my electric range costs a special price per kilowatt. If they were allowed to run like the cell phone companies, theyâ(TM)d probably make up some garbage about the 240VAC plug for my major appliances being a âoespecial exceptionâ and charge double the rate per kWh.

Whether a cell phone is tethered or not, the cell phone provider has 100% control over how much bandwidth that connection gets. Thereâ(TM)s no reason a person connecting a laptop to a cell phone should be using any more bandwidth than a person browsing the same sites on a smart phone unless the phone company is stupid enough to let them. If the connection really isnâ(TM)t fast enough to handle video and VoiP, then those services wonâ(TM)t run well, right? On the other hand, if it isnâ(TM)t fast enough to handle those, then why are the companies allowed to advertise them as having the bandwidth they advertise now? The rates they advertise are more than enough to do those things. If they sell me a service that is supposed to be fast enough for that kind of stuff and then ban most of the specific applications that make it possible to use the speeds they advertisements then isnâ(TM)t that just an old-school bait-and-switch scam?

Re:If only

[Registered Coward v2]

I'm talking specifically about SMS, which was the topic of the parent post. The service is essentially identical between providers. Yes, there is a difference in coverage area, so I would be fine with the price being Verizon > ATT > T-Mobile/Sprint > MetroPCS (or whatever) That is not what we see, though. More importantly, everyone recently DOUBLED their per-SMS fee. There is no cost of service justification for the price increase, and no "supplier differentiation" that suddenly applied to all of them. It is clearly the act of an oligopoly.

Considering plans from ATT and VZW, for example, differ significantly in cost (59 vs 69 for example) for the same minutes and unlimited texting your argument is wrong. And Boost offers unlimited calls/web/text for a lot less than comparable VZW/ATT plans as well; so there is proce competition.

As for differentiation; carriers do that on a number of things such as phone selection and perceived service quality. Text messaging is merely one part of heir service offering.

Re:If only

[jam244]

They might as well sell bandwidth in pints for all the difference it'd make.

It comes in pints? I'm getting one!

Re:If only

[Hognoxious]

The maximum size of a usenet message is somewhat larger than 160 bytes. In practical terms there's a world of difference between dividing a file into 20 parts and dividing it into 20,000.

Re:If only

[aurispector]

Because it doesn't require a rooted phone.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Is It Safe To Come Out Yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is slashdot's annual lame April Fool's day "prank" over yet?

Re:Is It Safe To Come Out Yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes because it's 2nd April you fucking idiot.

Re:Is It Safe To Come Out Yet?

[linhares]

not in Easter Island

Real?

[Anthony_Cargile]

I assume this is real, and if so this is just one example of Google rejecting an app for their mobile platform; Apple is notorious for it. The company where I work has been waiting on an app from a prominent home theater equipment manufacturer to pass Apple inspection, but it has failed several times in the past 6 months due it's low-level hardware usage, mainly in the area of networking.

I wouldn't normally bash Apple for their iPhone platform, but the restrictions placed on apps is just too limiting compared to Android (unless you factor jailbreaking), but it's popularity makes it a must for mobile development so you have to just accept it. That said, I thought anything could run on Android granted it compiled and you distributed it but I guess I was wrong, according to this.

Re:Real?

[jmorris42]

> but it's popularity makes it a must for mobile development

Custom home theater app? Are you fricking kidding me? Sounds like you do turnkey solutions. The customer isn't going to give a rats rear what the underlying hardware was when you set them up a custom solution and waiting around months for Apple's permission just means you could have been selling stuff for months had you picked a better platform to build on. Or just jailbreak the damned thing and get on with it.

Re:Real?

[Anthony_Cargile]

*sigh* - It's the application Crestron has been promising for the past few months, even going so far as displaying it at CES 2009 even though it is still trying to pass Apple's inspection for the app store. We won several awards at CES '09, but here's the thing: we are also an Apple dealer, so we sell iPhones and this app lets us integrate what we now sell with the high-dollar Crestron home theater infrastructures we've been setting up for years.

Again, jailbreaking is not an option, as Apple would get a tad pissed at us hacking their products, even more so since we sell them based on a huge contract we had to sign in order to do so. These solutions are anything but "turnkey", by the way, as we've done contracting work for several owners of Forbes list companies. Not to take a dig, but your sig is starting to make sense...

Re:Real?

[jmorris42]

> we are also an Apple dealer

Ok, so that would kinda preclude jailbreaking. But it is still true you (and Crestron) are leaving money on the table by being tied to Apple's whims. You can't sell a product you don't have. Unless Apple would yank your dealer agreement for daring to use other products, and if they are that anal get out NOW, ya should keep in mind that the world doesn't revolve around em and be prepared to use somebody else's hardware when they get in your way. Enough folk did that and they might become a little less pissy.

> These solutions are anything but "turnkey", by the way, as we've done contracting work
> for several owners of Forbes list companies.

Turnkey is what large companies usually want. Guess you are doing something unusual.

Re:Real?

[Anthony_Cargile]

But it is still true you (and Crestron) are leaving money on the table by being tied to Apple's whims.

Trust me, if everybody were using Android or Windows Mobile, we would be either developing or using apps for those platforms, but the vast majority of our customers use iPhones and since we sell them we promote them to our customers so we can integrate the products we sell with our solutions and profit off of both.

There's something in R&D I can't talk about that involves a far different and 100% cross-platform (web-based) solution that doesn't have to succumb to anybody's restrictions save for our own, but it is still under heavy development and confidential at this point, but it just goes to show that we are exploring our options without burning any bridges.

Turnkey is what large companies usually want. Guess you are doing something unusual.

Maybe I misunderstood, although a more appropriate term would be "touchkey" (my poor attempt at humor).

Re:Real?

[evand]

It's not Crestron Mobile (iTunes Store link), is it? Because, if so, congratulations; it looks like you've passed Apple's inspection.

Re:Real?

[linhares]

Actually, google is playing hardball with tmobile: "A Google spokesperson tells Ars, "We inadvertently unpublished the applications for all carriers, and today we have corrected the problem so that all Android Market users outside the T-Mobile US network will now have access to the applications. We have notified the affected developers."

Re:Real?

[mini me]

but it has failed several times in the past 6 months due it's low-level hardware usage, mainly in the area of networking.

What could you possibly be doing with a simple remote control app that wouldn't pass the Apple test? (Assuming that the application was well written so that it wasn't constantly crashing, etc.) Given that it is only using the public APIs, there isn't anything particularly "low level" that you are allowed to do with the hardware.

Re:Real?

[Asdanf]

I thought anything could run on Android granted it compiled and you distributed it but I guess I was wrong, according to this.

Did you even read TFA? It said:

G1 users can download applications directly from developers, circumventing rules that may prohibit apps from the Market.

So yes, your original belief was correct.

Re:Real?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you even read TFA?

By jove, he must be a slashdot user!

Re:Real?

[shutdown -p now]

This is the single most insightful comment in the whole story, which also happens to make it a non-story (and therefore all other comments, redundant). Bravo.

Re:Real?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google haven't rejected the app for their platform, it's just for their apps store.

There are a number of alternative app stores for Android (AndAppStore, SlideME, etc.) which will most likely still offer tethering apps and there is nothing stopping users going straight to a developers website and downloading the app directly.

With Apple a rejection means Game Over, with Google it just means your app won't be in one distribution channel.

Re:Real?

[the_womble]

Google seem to be being perfectly reasonable. They They are doing enough to keep the carriers happy, but only that. In addition, AFAIK, the platform is more open then Apple's so you can obtain the application from elsewhere and install it without jail breaking.

Re:Real?

[cr_nucleus]

Man, the summary should definitely be updated.

Come on editors, do your job !

Re:Real?

[SenseiLeNoir]

Admittedly, the android market is not the ONLY place you have to download applications. The G1 does allow installs (once you enable the option) from other sources, so its not as bad at the iPhone.

My T-Mobile UK data plan DOES allow tethering. Its called Mobile Broadband Plus, and indeed does allow you to use a phone as a modem (and I have used it on my N95). Hmm, so does this mean I cant do tethering on my G1? Its a bit unfair I am being held to the terms of some T-Mobile contracts, especially ones not in my own country.

Re:Real?

[dangitman]

I assume this is real, and if so this is just one example of Google rejecting an app for their mobile platform; Apple is notorious for it.

Interesting. So, when Google does it, then they get a free pass. But Apple earned scorn from the very first rejected app. If this is really an issue of freedom and openness, then isn't once too many times? How many times is acceptable? One? Twelve? One hundred?

Re:Real?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent redundant.

Re:Real?

[tyrione]

Agreed.

http://www.crestron.com/solutions/integration_with_apple_mac_iphone/

Re:Real?

[icebraining]

Android apps can be installed without the Android Store and without jailbreaking. You can install any "denied" app without violation contract. Yes, it's different.

Re:Real?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in the netherlands,
and using T-Mobile. at the moment of writing, my home DSL is down for over a week, and i'm posting this from my pc tethered to my Nokia N95 (which is my only connection used for an _whole week_)

i specificly asked if i was alowed to do this when i signed my contract, and had no problems, ever.

i thought about getting a G1, but it seems that Nokia S60 (symbian) is more open than apple and google combined.

Re:Real?

[AvitarX]

As someone who has used Crestron equipment (in a business setting), I can say the ability to use an iPhone as a remote at home would be great.

It has a great screen with touch capabilities, fairly long battery life, and stays with the owner. The App could sell for the price of the Crestron controller, and still be worth it, as I wouldn't want to carry and extra device around the house, or have remotes all over, but it would still be cool to be able to control audio room by room to suit my current location.

Now, I don't actually know what Crestron does for a home setting, so I could be way off, but it still would seam ridiculous to say people don't care if they need extra controllers vs something they already have.

I know that if I were choosing between 2 products, and one needed a dedicated controler, and the other used my G1 with an application, there would be very little decision making involved, as long as the one using the G1 was good enough, the great one with a dedicated controller would lose.

Re:Real?

[ceoyoyo]

You don't understand. When your idol turns out not to be perfect, there's hell to pay.

Last time there was a story about Android and everyone was waxing poetic about how great it was going to be I dared predict that Google was going to have to impose some limitations or nobody would allow Android devices on their network. That earned a troll mod.

If Google ever builds their own network and becomes a telecom, then maybe they can offer a completely unrestricted device and we'll arrive in the promised land (but I doubt it). In the meantime, the telecoms have gotten everybody used to "unlimited" plans of various kinds. There's no such thing as unlimited, so those plans just have the limitations hidden. One of those is the no tethering thing, and it's not going away until the unlimited plan goes away.

My cell provider charges me for a set number of gigabytes and they have no problem whatsoever with tethering.

Re:Real?

[Sockatume]

It should be noted that "outside the T-Mobile US network" also includes T-Mobile UK, who permit tethering on two of their three "unlimited web" options. VOIP, which was being discussed above, is only permitted on the uppermost of the three.

Re:Real?

[Anonymous Coward]

Translated: I don't really have anything to had to this conversation, but I want to take advantage of every opportunity to begrudgingly bash Apple.

Re:Real?

[Ash Vince]

I will be sticking with Windows Mobile for the foreseeable future since there phones have an application built in that allows exactly this tethering. As a long term Linux user I am a little disappointed but as I have mentioned on slashdot before this is a killer application for me that I cannot live without.

I also use my laptop as a linux based router so I pass an entire networks internet traffic through my Windows mobile phone when I have no other net connection available. I have free data on my phone so this does not cost me a penny providing I do not do it often enough to overrun my phone companies fair usage policy.

I do find it hard to believe that neither Apple or Google are willing to stand up to the telephone companies and provide functionality that their main competitor HTC already builds in to their phones using Windows Mobile.

Maybe Microsoft are not so bad after all :)

Re:Real?

[mdwh2]

I dared predict that Google was going to have to impose some limitations

Restrictions on their online store != restrictions on the phone.

(OOI though, are there no longer phones that do "tethering" as standard? I've seen it being done for years, from smart phones, down to my basic cheap non-smart Motorola V980, with no special applications needed. Or if most phones still do this, how come Slashdot publicity is focused on the two niche phones in the market that impose all these limitations? I mean, I'm undecided Android, but this logic of "If Android is bad, the Iphone must be good" is tiresome, when there are far bigger players in the market that don't have all these restrictions, and it's been this way for years.)

Re:Real?

[ceoyoyo]

Both Android and the iPhone tend to get special deals on data plans. I really doubt T-mobile cares if you tether an Android phone IF you pay for the data plan that's aimed at that application. AT&T has also said they're happy for people to tether their iPhones, IF they pay for the tethering plan.

Problems only arise because people want to tether but still only pay the discount data rates.

Re:Real?

[AndrewNeo]

My HTC Fuze has an option when I plug it in to my computer over USB to "Share Internet Connection." While the networking is set up by default to only work when you have a tethering plan, a simple registry hack (to the end user, a CAB that modifies the registry, or a settings 'tweak' app) is all that's needed to get it working with the normal data connection. Winmo comes with the "Internet Connection Sharing" app out of the box. And it works very well.
If you want more advanced sharing, WMWifiRouter will create an ad-hoc connection you can connect to with your computer, with multi-user and WEP support.

Re:Real?

[BlackCreek]

What speed can you get out of t-mobile running through tethering on your phone?

I have a G1. You can still install the tethering app, but you just won't do it from the Android market.

The G1 has its downsides to a brand new Nokia. My gf has the the "5800 xpress music", which I find a _much_ better phone than the G1 in many respects, but the G1 is a much better hand-held computer. Not to mention that the integration with Google apps is much better...

Re:Real?

[AvitarX]

Considering the first and only Android phone is HTC, and the next one probably will be too.

I would be hard pressed to call HTC the main competitor for Android.

Re:Real?

[SoopahCell]

This is exactly why I still use Windows Mobile, despite how difficult it is to develop for (thousand dollar Visual Studio license fee) and its browser being well behind iPhone and Android.

Now, some providers block this built-in tether (Verizon, Sprint) so they can charge you double to enable it - but without an app store to lock you into, it's easy to install an app that works around their block (PDANet). With tethering officially blocked on Android, I am kinda freaked out to say Windows Mobile is officially the most open cellphone platform. Weird.

What did you expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the United States the carriers would rape your mother and charge you for it if it were legal. I can only hope that there is a special place in Hell for these scumbags, maybe somewhere near the FOX executives.

Re:What did you expect?

[linhares]

Now that there's skype for the iPhone, I'm absolutely sure that AT&T is going to find a way to charge for long-distance email.

Re:What did you expect?

[KingAlanI]

Ninth Circle Of Hell: For those who commit treason, exploit a monopoly, or cancel _Firefly_

Re:What did you expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

what, like the back of a volkswagon?

Re:What did you expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think there now Torgo's Executive Powder

Re:What did you expect?

[theshowmecanuck]

a special place in Hell for these scumbags

They are going to send them to Canada and force them to pay for the cell phone / data plans we have here. Most plans here charge us long distance charges for long distance calls... that we RECEIVE!. Try that one on.

Re:What did you expect?

[sabernet]

Your carriers are pussies. Move to Canada if you truly want to see telecom demons from the ninth circle of hell.

Re:What did you expect?

[elrous0]

Contrary to popular belief, dead Fox executives don't go to the WORST part of Hell--they go to the presidential suite.

I suppose if all you do is change lost passwds...

[BadAnalogyGuy]

For a group of so-called "IT professionals", you sure don't know jack shit about technology.

What in the world makes you think that Google can't feed different "Google Store" pages to different users based on carrier?

T-Mobile does support tethering

[StrategicIrony]

The T-Mobile MDA and the follup, T-Mobile Wing are both based on Windows Mobile 6, which includes a tethering app as part of the operating system.

T-Mobile always supported tethering with my old MDA (that's a rebranded HTC Hermes).

So... is it an android rule, or does T-Mobile just not bother to stand up to Microsoft who supports it on all of their phones?

hmmm..

Re:T-Mobile does support tethering

[bahwi]

No, the MDA had the tethering app removed. You could download the missing .exe file off the web but it was removed from the base system. I spent many hours trying to get it working.

Can't vouch for the wing.

--Joseph

Re:T-Mobile does support tethering

[Thalagyrt]

I tethered with the MDA all the time when I was with T-Mobile by using it as a Bluetooth modem. They never complained once.

Re:T-Mobile does support tethering

[tagno25]

The T-Mobile MDA and the follup, T-Mobile Wing are both based on Windows Mobile 6, which includes a tethering app as part of the operating system.

My MDA was a built on Windows Mobile 5.

T-Mobile always supported tethering with my old MDA (that's a rebranded HTC Hermes).

My MDA was a re-branded HTC Wizard.

So... is it an android rule, or does T-Mobile just not bother to stand up to Microsoft who supports it on all of their phones?

Okay, so they ban it from the market. The pay ones could be considered illegal because they used code that falls under the GPL, but did not have any way to get access to that code. You can also get one of the free ones from Google codes.
You also have to have root access to even use the app

This seems like an April fools joke though.

Re:T-Mobile does support tethering

[DavidD_CA]

Carriers can disable WM tethering from the OS, just like they can install their own apps to replace/extend it.

Re:T-Mobile does support tethering

[Macrat]

I tether via T-Mobile all the time with my Sony Ericsson P910 & P990 phones.

Re:T-Mobile does support tethering

[RebootKid]

I just called T-Mobile. Tethering is allowed depending on the plan you've got. If you use too much bandwidth (operator did not know what the # was, and has promised to follow back up with me) then they throttle down your bandwidth. You must have a 'smartphone plan' with unlimited everything (internet, minutes, messages) to qualify, which is a non-issue for me. The guy I spoke to was named Marish (Spelling could be off.) Additionally, I've had smart phones with them ever since I had a Treo 600. Not only did they support tethering then, they gave me a walk-through of how to configure my Treo650 as a Bluetooth modem, complete with APN info, and dialing strings. Again, I pay for the premium package, but it saves me from having to carry around an extra data card. and yes, I've got G1.

Re:T-Mobile does support tethering

[larsoncc]

I have a TMobile Dash (HTC) and it tethers just fine, and yes, it's a built in app. Been using it this way for over a year, and it was an ADVERTISED feature of the phone when I was shopping for phones...

Too bad it's only EDGE.

Re:T-Mobile does support tethering

[larsoncc]

Wish I had mod points. +1, actually bothered to check facts.

Re:T-Mobile does support tethering

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, it's my job doing tethering for every device under the sun for TMO.

There are a specific set of phones that "can't" be used due to their disruptive behavior on the network. That's limited to just about four phones right now and the G1 is one of them. We know it can be used with hacks. It's just that we're not allowed to do it for the G1 and the others on the list.

Posted anon, sorry, can't speak officially because well, I like my job. :)

Re:T-Mobile does support tethering

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats why you want to use an unlocked phone. I can do whatever I want to do with my Nokia and ATT can't do shit about it.

Re:T-Mobile does support tethering

[Doppler00]

I using tethering on my T-Mobile Wing when I need it. It's not very fast, in the bay area I at least get Edge speeds, but things like Youtube video and large downloads usually end up timing out.

I like the tethering option because it's unlimited internet on my phone and my laptop ($20/month). If I was with any other carrier, it would be a separate $60/month plan (yikes). And for occasional use, I don't need the speed.

My guess is that G3 networks are really not ready yet for the kind of use that laptop users want.

Re:T-Mobile does support tethering

[madsci1016]

Glad someone beat me to posting this. I was going to call sheninagans as not only does T-mobile support tethering, if you call and ask them, they will walk you through setting it up, as they did with me. Something is fishy with google's claim.

Re:T-Mobile does support tethering

[smoker2]

You didn't mention "in the USA".

I tether my Trinity with a laptop and I use T-Mobile, in the UK. I don't have unlimited anything - I have a sim only contract, with 50 min talk included, plus HSDPA plus tethering for less than £20 per month. (The HSDPA tethering option is 10/month)

Re:T-Mobile does support tethering

[CrashandDie]

You could download the missing .exe file off the web but it was removed from the base system. I spent many hours trying to get it working.

That's because Android runs .dex files.

Re:T-Mobile does support tethering

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, no?

I was able to tether my MDA with no changes to the phone. I only had to install the drivers on my laptop to make it work.

Duh

[jmorris42]

Google isn't going to allow apps that annoy the carriers. In that respect they will be no better than the iPhone. On the other hand they probably won't be banning apps simply because they don't fit into Google's view of what you 'should' be doing on Android so that is a step up from Steve's Iron Fist.

Bottom line, get an unlocked develoopers handset unless you want the cell company and/or Google to tell you what you can and can't run on THEIR hardware. Because that's the bottom line, get a contract phone and it isn't yours and you shouldn't think it is.

Re:Duh

[emarkp]

Bottom line, get an unlocked develoopers handset unless you want the cell company and/or Google to tell you what you can and can't run on THEIR hardware.

Except last I heard the dev handset doesn't allow you to install any copy-protected apps.

Re:Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the difference between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois at gaining influence/power. One will bring flowers and knock politely to gain access to the club. The latter will knock violently and shame you into letting you in. Both approaches have success but it's usually easier to ask for a tasty beverage later when you have been considerate in the past.

Re:Duh

[Zerth]

Can't you just install a rooted version of the standard handset firmware over it?

There was some discussion about that in the previous /. story after someone noticed the bonus firmware worked for paid but not copyprotected apps.

Re:Duh

[GooberToo]

Its still easily done. If you have a rooted phone or a dev phone, you can simply run one of the many alternative firmwares where you can install copy-protected apps.

Re:Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Bottom line, get an unlocked develoopers handset unless you want the cell company and/or Google to tell you what you can and can't run on THEIR hardware.

Wait, can't you install apps from elsewhere on Android? Doesn't that instantly negate the entire premise of your post?

Re:Duh

[ceoyoyo]

Sounds just like jailbreaking an iPhone.

Re:Duh

[GooberToo]

You're right, it is pretty close. The difference is, for dev phones, jail breaking is not required as the phone comes with root access and a bootloader designed to easily load alternative firmwares. For the generally available G1 phones, it is exactly the same as jail breaking.

Re:Duh

[spikesahead]

I think the root issue is the core issue. They're removing it because they don't want to encourage people to install custom firmware on their phone.

It's kind of like this; Ford makes a catalog where they include third party items. One of the items submitted to that catalog will only work if you pry the control chip out of your car and make some warranty voiding modifications to it. Ford says, you know, maybe this shouldn't be part of the official catalog, but good luck selling it on your own.

Re:Duh

[ceoyoyo]

If you have any iPhone, not just a developer one, you can simply run an alternative firmware as well. "Jailbreaking" these days consists of loading a custom ipsw (firmware) file with iTunes. Since Apple is quite happy to service under warranty jailbroken devices (they replaced my iPod Touch), there's really no practical difference at all.

Re:Duh

[Chyeld]

Actually it's more like this:

Ford sells cars, that are pure 'Ford' cars without any additional hardware, at a set price.

Ford also sells the same cars with branding and additional 3rd party doodads at a lower price, with the some of the difference in cost being made up by the money they get from the other companies.

Both cars can be modified to remove or add doodads but the cars that come with extras come with an easily bypassible plastic lock on most of those doodads, because the people paying for the branding don't want you to just buy the cheaper car and then toss all the stuff they paid for away to get the 'base' car.

Either way, Ford isn't putting forth as much effort as Toyota in keeping you 'out' of the car customization scene. Where Ford is planning on selling many different versions of the cars with different sponsers for each, Toyota only has one. And where Ford's 'lock' is plastic and easily bypassed, Toyota not only has a far sturdier lock, but they constantly check back up with you to see if you've removed the lock and try to replace it if you've beaten it.

And then, there's Volvo...

Not a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Fortunately, Android phones can install applications that aren't on the Android Market. You can find Tetherbot (not the application mentioned in TFA, but it has similar functionality and, wasn't available when I checked a minute ago) at http://graha.ms/androidproxy/, with step by step instructions to using it at here.

Re:Not a problem

[f1vlad]

Yeah, exactly, hence the insignificance of this news announcement.

Re:Not a problem

[DMKrow]

I believe that Google has restored access to the tether apps outside US. Funny thing, the app mentioned is still available for download from code.google.com in apk form. If you can root the phone you can certainly find these programs. There is even a version tracking app for programs outside the market to alert you for updates. Pulling an app from the market only carries weight for paid apps.

Re:Not a problem

[zaffir]

Here's the app in question, hosted by none other than Google.

http://code.google.com/p/android-wifi-tether/

Re:Not a problem

[Toonol]

Parent is the most important post in this thread.

Re:Not a problem

[dujenwook]

I used it not too long ago when I somehow forgot to pay my cable bill. Worked like a charm, thought the torrents were a bit slow. :P

Re:Not a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

link to another free app that is simpler, easier to use and works better than tetherbot - I've had a ton of problems with tetherbot(sorry graham):

http://junefabrics.com/android/index.php

Re:Not a problem

[_egg]

Why would you promote Tetherbot when there are now two full-featured, easy-to-use, free alternatives?!

WiFi Tether for Android
http://code.google.com/p/android-wifi-tether

aNetShare
http://android.a0soft.com/?url=aNetShare.htm

(If I could post QR codes here, I would...)

Re:Not a problem

[_egg]

Why would you promote pdaNet when there are two full-featured, easy-to-use, *free* alternatives that don't require a USB connection to the phone?!

WiFi Tether for Android
http://code.google.com/p/android-wifi-tether

aNetShare
http://android.a0soft.com/?url=aNetShare.htm

(If I could post QR codes here, I would...)

Re:Not a problem

[Lemmy Caution]

While I use WiFi Tether myself, it should be noted that the above alternatives require that one get root access to the phone (equivalent to jailbreaking - in some sense, more dramatic in that you're actually installing a different build of android.) That is not a straightforward proposition for most people, and there are a couple steps involved that, if done wrong, could brick the phone.

pdaNet has its limitations, but it doesn't require root access to the phone or other radical measures.

Re:Not a problem

[_egg]

Good point, didn't realize that PdaNet doesn't require root... That may make it worth the price for those who have yet to root their phone.

Re:Tether Different (tm)

[fractoid]

I would have thought that they'd be more against a tether in the opposite direction, letting you use the phone as a wifi VOIP handset. That may be, though, because Australia is the arse end of the Internets and home of the shittiest phone data plans in the known universe, and using your ADSL line is pretty much always cheaper than using a wireless connection. $40 / 6GB is about the best plan you can get. Amusingly, though, providers here actively encourage tethering.

already fixed (outside US anyway)

[Sir_Sri]

it's already undone outside the US. See the article on arstechnica etc.

you can buy Android apps from outside the market

[YesIAmAScript]

Unlike the iPhone, there is more than one market for the Android platform. Developers can sell their apps directly on their own websites.

Perhaps the app will remain on the developer's site for purchase.

With different carriers

[mikesd81]

This incident raises some interesting questions, the developer notes in his blog. 'Does this mean that apps in the Market have to adhere to the ToS for only T-Mobile, even when other carriers sign on? Will all apps have to adhere to the ToS for every carrier that supports Android phones?'"

I would think, and it's only a guess here, that once other carriers come on board w/ the Android, they would have a notice by the app if it would violate the ToS of the carrier. I don't know how they would enforce it, though.

Re:you can buy Android apps from outside the marke

[mikesd81]

That was mentioned in the article actually that that would be a way around it.

No crazy restriction for Windows Mobile Apps

[Jamz]

This is why I use and develop for Windows Mobile.

I can write my app, I don't have to pay anyone or tell anyone.
My app can do whatever I want, to the limits of possibility.
I can sell my app or give it away to enrich the platform.

I'm not so keen on these App Store ideas - or phones that require you to upload your app to the mothership so it can be validated that it doesn't conflict with any one else's future business plans.

Just compile, run, and distribute .... whats wrong with that?

Re:No crazy restriction for Windows Mobile Apps

[Anonymous Coward]

But the phones blow goats, and so does the OS, when you get right down to it. Who wants to develop for something as uninteresting as a Windows Mobile phone?

Re:No crazy restriction for Windows Mobile Apps

[John Hasler]

You don't have to sell through the Android App Store if you don't want to. You are free to distribute your Android software however you see fit.

Re:No crazy restriction for Windows Mobile Apps

[Anonymous Coward]

You and your user certainly couldn't be more satisfied.

Re:No crazy restriction for Windows Mobile Apps

[Anonymous Coward]

how did this get modded as troll? if someone were saying the same thing about some open source project they'd get modded insightful. just goes to show that some people around here are nothing but mindless assholes.

Re:No crazy restriction for Windows Mobile Apps

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing, assuming Windows Mobile is worth the price and does what you need.
I prefer my Nokia running Linux and pulling applications from the 1,000s of free apps already written, tested and available under Maemo. Here's the main application web site: http://maemo.org/

Re:No crazy restriction for Windows Mobile Apps

[Yosho]

I can write my app, I don't have to pay anyone or tell anyone.

Out of curiosity, is that actually true? Last time I checked, the only way to compile applications for the Windows Mobile platform required that you have at least the "Standard" edition of Visual Studio, which will set you back $250. The free Express version can't do it. While the Qt toolkit is free, it requires that you have Microsoft's Windows Mobile SDK installed, which requires that you have VS Standard installed, so that won't work, either.

Is there some free development solution I don't know about?

Re:No crazy restriction for Windows Mobile Apps

[Anonymous Coward]

I used Lazarus a freepascal ide.

Re:No crazy restriction for Windows Mobile Apps

[sw155kn1f3]

You can run .net apps on phones and PDAs. And any express edition will make you .net app.
Windows Mobile is very open platform and easy to develop for. Marketing, usability departments for it etc seems to be run by idiots though.

Re:No crazy restriction for Windows Mobile Apps

[SuperKendall]

I can write my app, I don't have to pay anyone or tell anyone.
My app can do whatever I want, to the limits of possibility.
I can sell my app or give it away to enrich the platform.

I could do all that too, using Cydia on the iPhone.

The difference is that if I choose to have an app live within the App Store ecosystem is has a huge chance of being seen and used by many, many people where it would simply languish if I just had it on my own website.

Or if I want to do something outside the scope of what the App Store might allow, I can do anything up to and including simply releasing a ton of source code for everyone to use.

But at least I have that choice.

Re:No crazy restriction for Windows Mobile Apps

[mjwx]

Here's what people are forgetting about Android, you can install applications from any source.

I can write my app, I don't have to pay anyone or tell anyone.
My app can do whatever I want, to the limits of possibility.
I can sell my app or give it away to enrich the platform.

This describes Android to a tea. This is being driven by T-mobile and has already been undone by Google in the rest of the world (Singtel/Optus still have the app). The platform is open but the phone companies are still arseholes, that will never change.

Just compile

Have coding skills? SDK is free.

run,

You can run android in a VM, although the developers phone is better for testing.

and distribute

You know how to set up a web page dont you?

There's a great deal of FOSS stuff for Android already, not all of it is on the Android Marketplace like Tetherbot (sorry, don't have link handy, please use this).

Now when it comes to Apple and the official AppStore being the only place you can get Apps then I agree with you 100%.

Re:No crazy restriction for Windows Mobile Apps

[Jamz]

Hmm .. I'm no expert but doesn't Cydia require the user to jailbreak their iPhone?

Anyhow the point here that I didn't quite realise the first time around is that this Android restriction seems only to apply to the Android app store and not the device itself. APparently you can still distribute Android apps that don't adhere to the App Store rules.

Re:No crazy restriction for Windows Mobile Apps

[Jamz]

Point well made - I believe your are right.

When you are an ISV or Gold Partner, MS grants you a number of licenses for all this stuff which I tend to gloss over from time to time.

Back to the original point, from the other comments it appears that the Android app restrictions apply only to the Google App Store rather than the device itself. You could still sell non-conformant software, just not in their app store?

When Microsoft release their App Store concept for Windows Mobile, it may well have a matching set of absurd conditions ... who knows. I hope they learn from the other's mistakes.

Cheers,
      J.

Re:No crazy restriction for Windows Mobile Apps

[pilot1]

The Android Market is entirely optional; if you want to, you can write apps and distribute them apart from it, the same as you do with Windows Mobile.

Re:No crazy restriction for Windows Mobile Apps

[Jamz]

Actually Yosho is right - you need to specifally target the Compact Framework.

But in regards to the Marketing/UI departments I think you are absolutley correct! I am continually surprised how a device like the iPhone with no Copy/Paste, Picture messaging, Multi-tasking or Calendar connection to Exchange can be considered a good buy for corporate people... I really think the MS marketing and UI departments need to learn a few lessons from Apple.

J.

Re:No crazy restriction for Windows Mobile Apps

[julesh]

Out of curiosity, is that actually true? Last time I checked, the only way to compile applications for the Windows Mobile platform required that you have at least the "Standard" edition of Visual Studio, which will set you back $250.

http://cegcc.sourceforge.net/
http://classic.pocketgear.com/software_detail.asp?id=11502&associateid=1224

I'm sure at least one of these WinCE ports of GCC works.

Re:No crazy restriction for Windows Mobile Apps

[Anonymous Coward]

But you are not allowed to install the .net compact framework SDK (which is the only .net runtime on the windows mobile device) along side an express edition of visual studio. The GP was right. AFAIK, you can not create CF applications with the standard .net SDK.

Re:No crazy restriction for Windows Mobile Apps

[knarf]

Yes, you can run .net apps... and they run like mangy dogs on three legs, at least on my HTC Prophet. They also have all sort of nasty issues like missing copy/paste, parts of the app hidden under the on-screeen keyboard etc. If an app has been written in .net I've learned that it is usually not worth installing it. A good java implementation on this phone would be better, especially given that the CPU (a 200 MHz OMAP) is supposed to be able to execute jvm bytecode in hardware. Alas, such a thing has yet to cross my path...

Re:No crazy restriction for Windows Mobile Apps

[tomtermite]

With capitalism, a company makes something, offers it to the market at a price, and people decide to buy or not to buy. Case in point, iPhone. Development for Apple is notoriously painful (not writing the code - Cocoa, iPhone SDK, WebObjects makes that easy). But that's because they are letting outsiders into the guts of their product. They want (need/have to have) ultimate say over their product, to leverage their investment and ensure what is available in the marketplace is indeed what they intend.

Quit whining. If you don't like what the company (Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc.) offers, buy a competitor's product, or, better yet, make your own that is superior (the American way -- and open source is one means to that end).

Re:No crazy restriction for Windows Mobile Apps

[mdwh2]

The difference is that if I choose to have an app live within the App Store ecosystem is has a huge chance of being seen and used by many, many people where it would simply languish if I just had it on my own website.

You know, centralised app stores have been around long before Apple decided to do one. Many networks might have one, for example.

Are you seriously suggesting that before Apple came along, the only way to distribute an application was to set up your own website? Ladies and Gentlemen, I think we have witnessed the birth of another mythical "Apple first".

Or if I want to do something outside the scope of what the App Store might allow, I can do anything up to and including simply releasing a ton of source code for everyone to use.

But then it won't Just Work on people's phones, they'll have to jailbreak it (or worse, compile it from source, if that's what you mean - yes, you and I can do that, but this is a ludicrous suggestion for most phone users, especially for a phone where the sole major selling point is that it is allegedly "easy to use" and "Just Works").

Re:No crazy restriction for Windows Mobile Apps

[SuperKendall]

Hmm .. I'm no expert but doesn't Cydia require the user to jailbreak their iPhone?

You say that like it's hard. It's just downloading an app and running it. You have to separate the issue of unlocking a phone from Jailbreaking it, which are very different things.

Apparently you can still distribute Android apps that don't adhere to the App Store rules.

Yes, just like on the iPhone. My point is that just as many people would do so, and in fact because of the larger iPhone market there are probably more Jailbroken phones than Android phones around (estimates range well over a million). If you are motivated enough to look outside the official app store for something, downloading one app to jailbreak a phone is not an impediment.

Re:No crazy restriction for Windows Mobile Apps

[SuperKendall]

Are you seriously suggesting that before Apple came along, the only way to distribute an application was to set up your own website?

No, actually Palm had half decent stores (I think they were third party, but they were widely used). But the difference is it was not accessible right from the device. Most others were barley more effective in terms of sales than setting up your own web site, mostly for that same reason. Why do you think Microsoft is now working on a store too?

It's hard to argue that the App Store has has a tremendious effect on sales (or rather I should say distribution to encompass free apps) in a way we simply have not seen before (not even in the Palm days which were the zenith for third party PDA/mobile apps).

But then it won't Just Work on people's phones, they'll have to jailbreak it

Which is so easy now that anyone can do it, since you just download an app and you are done. If you are already so keen on an app you were going to download from a third party anyway, one more step will not deter you.

And of course, there are about as many jailbroken iPhones in the wild (estimates are well over a million) as there are G1 phones so from a market perspective that looks similar even if you assume not one more person ever will jailbreak a phone.

Re:No crazy restriction for Windows Mobile Apps

[sw155kn1f3]

of course this is wrong, because before any compact framework downloaded I was able to make .net app which ran on my mpx200.. some functionality is not available of course, but .net apps just work on desktop and mobile, you have to use few gimmicks to display menus right, that's all

Re:No crazy restriction for Windows Mobile Apps

[Anonymous Coward]

More proof that Windows users are morons.

Re:I suppose if all you do is change lost passwds.

[ColdWetDog]

What in the world makes you think that Google can't feed different "Google Store" pages to different users based on carrier?

Sure they could, and the half bright user who realizes this can get the software from another source and stick in on the handset. Still doesn't solve the problem.

Re:you can buy Android apps from outside the marke

[linhares]

I know you are a script, but that was interesting.

forbids tethering?

[seebs]

I asked about tethering, they sold me a phone with a data plan. It works. They told me I could use it tethered.

WTF?

Re:forbids tethering?

[DragonTHC]

They forbid tethering to the G1 with the $24.99 data plan.

The only way T-Mobile was going to sell any G1 phones at all was to lower the price of their unlimited data plan from $59 a month to $24.99 for G1 users.

They're not prepared to let you tether at that price.

And if you were told different, the sales jerks lied and you have a lawsuit on your hands.

Re:forbids tethering?

[Anonymous Coward]

TF is that you believed a salesman, foo.

They lie like vampires at noon.

Re:forbids tethering?

[seebs]

I got a Motorola somethingorother a year ago with $19.99/month data which is either unlimited or enough that I've never hit the limit.

Re:forbids tethering?

[Macrat]

I have the T-Mobile $19.99 unlimited data plan and have been tethering for years...

Re:forbids tethering?

[fangorious]

I have the $5.99 t-zones unlimited web/email and I tether that just fine.

Re:forbids tethering?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the fundamental problem.

US ISPs and Telcos need to stop offering "unlimited" if they don't mean it.
If they offered tiered pricing with shaping after a set limit, then they wouldn't have these issues.

Bandwidth isn't infinite, there's nothing wrong with paying more for using more.

Re:forbids tethering?

[Anonymous Coward]

Weird.. When I was on T-Mobile, I was able to tether (via Bluetooth) with their $5.99 plan without any problem. And I remember people on the more expensive plan having no problems tethering. Have they changed their policy?

mod 0p

[Anonymous Coward]

to work I'm doing, a GAY NIGGER inkD splashes across that has grown up going to continue, all servers. Co8ing metadiscussions The 'community'

See. Google is not your lord and savior, nerds

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do so many nerds think Google is the greatest company on Earth?

It's not like they're an open company.

Advertising Agency = Google

[Anonymous Coward]

The Android phone is an advertising appliance provided by the largest advertiser in history. All advertisers want as much information concerning their target market as they can get - the cell phone is just another way to gain more information about YOU.

Every time you use any google service or product, you are being tracked.

Every time you visit a web page where the webmaster uses google-analytics, you are being tracked.

Google is a business. Your habits and interests are their cash cow. I wouldn't expect anything less than them wanting to prevent use of this loss leading device in a way that they couldn't see all the data transferred. That cell phone is like being a TV-Nielson family with all your transactions scanned, correlated and indexed. Assuming you use the same account on you home and work PCs, then they have your entire online life captured.

Nice, huh?

T-Mobile BlackBerry tethering

[UnixUnix]

I have been using my T-Mobile BlackBerry as a tethered modem for years. Not only is it allowed, there is no extra charge for it -- tethering is included in the $20 per month I pay for regular Internet access by the device.

Re:T-Mobile BlackBerry tethering

[Macrat]

Same here... I don't think the issue is with T-Mobile.

April Fools!

[Urza9814]

April fools!!! ...right? ...RIGHT?!?

Android not open, news at 11

[SirJorgelOfBorgel]

Wow, I can't see how anybody could be even remotely surprised with this.

Android was touted as being open. But users are stuck with all kinds of limitations. This has been known since day one it was out there. Sure you can jailbreak it though, but wth. You can't even write native apps (well you technically can, but its not supported)

Why are people surprised at this move? Sure, the G1 is on sale in many countries around the world and not just by T-Mobile USA, but Google bends to T-Mobile USA anyways.

When you get down to it, the G1 is just a glorified Java-phone not deserving of ANY of the hype. Basically, you can compare it to an iPhone, but without the 'charm' of Apple, and it just doesn't really work half as well. And even worse than iPhone, you cant get these apps in Europe in the appstore either anymore.

And guess what, I actually am from Europe and have a tethering-allowed data plan - from T-Mobile! Not even Apple removed the tethering stuff for their EU users....

Google ... I've just shut off my G1 for the last time. Back to playing with WM. Hey it ain't as shiny as iPhone but at least there's none of this ridiculous crap involved.

Re:Android not open, news at 11

[Anonymous Coward]

That'll show 'em!

Re:Android not open, news at 11

[Anonymous Coward]

you can buy from other markets.... how much more open can you get? google fullfills requirements to partners while customers can still get the app if they wish to spend a bit more effort... Everyone wins... sort of.

Re:Android not open, news at 11

[Lulfas]

Fixed before you typed your post. Go read the article and updates.

Re:Android not open, news at 11

[Mr2001]

You can't even write native apps (well you technically can, but its not supported)

You can use JNI, which is documented but not yet part of the SDK; a native SDK is in the works. There's even an official forum for native development.

Manpower is the limiting factor in Android's development, and if you'd like to help work on it, the code is out there and I'm sure your efforts would be welcome. Try that with iPhone or even Windows Mobile.

Re:Tether Different (tm)

[zblack_eagle]

Providers here bend you over with excess data usage charges, which you may be less likely to encounter if you didn't use tethering.

who cares?

[f1vlad]

I do understand why they do it. But any computer literate person can walk an easy walk-through steps on how to "root" your G1 and then install cracked app very easily. So who cares if they ban it. It's mostly geeks who buy these iphones I reckon, so most of them will be able to still tether away! :) I quite like mine, tethering works very well, but it kills battery instantly.

Re:who cares?

[mjwx]

But any computer literate person can walk an easy walk-through steps on how to "root" your G1 and then install cracked app very easily.

Any computer illiterate person will just go into the options and allow applications to be installed from any source. Sometimes us geeks just like doing things the hard way.

Re:who cares?

[f1vlad]

HEhe:) good point, never thought about that option!

Bits are bits!!!!

[ZorinLynx]

Why do carriers hate tethering so much?

Bits are bits, whether the phone's OS uses them or a tethered laptop.

Just set a monthly limit and be done with it. Yeah, a laptop can reach the limit sooner, but at least then everything will be on equal footing.

What's funny is that even providers that explicitly allow tethering charge more for it even though THE TRANSFER LIMIT IS THE SAME.

Re:Bits are bits!!!!

[ubernostrum]

Why do carriers hate tethering so much?

Because the moment your phone can provide an Internet connection to your laptop is the moment the bottom falls out of pricey "business on the go" plans which include a plug-in card for your laptop.

Re:Bits are bits!!!!

[mjwx]

Why do carriers hate tethering so much?

Because they oversell and need to limit your usage of their services. Same as ISP's.

In the US, advertising laws aren't as strict as Australia's and consumer protection is non existent so phone companies can advertise the world and deliver very little so long as the contract legalese is all in order. Even if the salesdroid lies through their teeth you have no recourse because what the salesdroid said doesn't matter, it's what is written on the piece of paper you signed that matters in a court of law. In Australia the consumer protection laws state that unless I am breaking a criminal law, my carrier (or ISP) has no right to interfere with how I use my service. This is why we have strict download caps, what I do with it up until the cap is no-ones business but my own and even after the cap, they cant say what I can and cannot do but can charge me whatever they like (specified in the contract) which is about 0.03-0.10 Cents (AUD) per MB.

Just set a monthly limit and be done with it.

Which is what we do in Australia. If downloads are capped (weather they shape connection speeds or charge after the cap is reached) it is illegal to advertise the connection as unlimited. If I violate a reasonable TOS they can cut me off and file with the court to get any monies they are legally owed, if the TOS is unreasonable the ACCC (Australian Consumer and Competition Commission) will eat them alive (which happens quite often, even with consumer protection our Telco's are borderline mafia's).

Re:Bits are bits!!!!

[commlinx]

Why do carriers hate tethering so much?

I'd assume they are offering some sort of "unlimited" plan at a low cost on the assumption that there's a limit to how much data you'll pump through a mobile device. As much as Australian Internet caps / over use charges suck in a lot of ways there are advantages to paying for what you use such as avoiding this situation.

I use wireless data quite a bit and the carriers couldn't care less what device you use it with, I can sign up for a $5 a month plan and use it with any device but pay heaps if I go over a small limit. They'd love if I downloaded a 1GB video on such a plan but it's ideal for say a Coke machine reporting how many cans are left. Heavier users go with say a $50 plan and get a higher data limit. At least it's all fairly transparent based on data usage rather than having various "fair use" rules.

Re:Bits are bits!!!!

[julesh]

Even if the salesdroid lies through their teeth you have no recourse because what the salesdroid said doesn't matter, it's what is written on the piece of paper you signed that matters in a court of law.

This is not true. In common law countries, of which the US is one, statements made during the sales process can override contract terms in some circumstances, and can render the contract voidable in others (i.e., you're no longer tied to that 24-month agreement you signed if it turned out the sales droid was wrong).

IANAL, but I do play one on Slashdot.

Re:Bits are bits!!!!

[mjwx]

This is not true. In common law countries, of which the US is one, statements made during the sales process can override contract terms in some circumstances, and can render the contract voidable in others (i.e., you're no longer tied to that 24-month agreement you signed if it turned out the sales droid was wrong).

That really depends on consumer protection and truth in advertising laws. In AU they have very strong laws in both these area's so often Telco's are held to their spoken word, but there is still the burden of proof, if a telco can prove that you were aware of the contracts T&C at the time of signing then your case has no merit but this is a difficult thing to prove in a court of law and in Australia the ombudsman often sides on the side of the consumer. In the US I suspect the outcome depends on how good your lawyer is, but this is based on third hand info.

I never argue with Telco's, I just send everything I have to say in writing, get every one of their responses in writing and let the TIO (Telecommunications Industry Ombudsmen) sort it out.

Over here, telco's have to be very careful about what their salespeople can promise.

Re:Bits are bits!!!!

[Doug Neal]

Why do carriers hate tethering so much?

Bits are bits, whether the phone's OS uses them or a tethered laptop.

I've got a feeling that it's less to do with bandwidth (they have plenty of it, really) and more to do with this...

Re:Bits are bits!!!!

[lamapper]

I'd assume they are offering some sort of "unlimited" plan at a low cost ....

Got screwed over by a cellular company (actually two before I walked with my dollars and never looked back...) I had a monthly plan, purchase their ALL-I-CAN-EAT-TEXT-MESSAGING plan (almost doubling my monthly in the process) for one reason.

I DID NOT WANT SURPRISES. I wanted to KNOW what my monthly was, pay it and be done with it.

Still they messed it up, set up the messaging wrong, it ate my voice minutes than begin charging me...one customer service rep admitted that it had been setup up wrong and said that they would take care of it. They DID NOT take care of it.

So after a three year positive track record of paying my bill ontime, instead of customer service for their mistake, they turned off my service for non payment.

Like I am going to pay for their mistake...NOT.

Been using VoIP, Total Cost of service for 1 year is less than $100. Done, no extras, no surprises and very successful for over 4 years now. I was paying in excess of $1,000 per year before the additional text messaging, which added over $500 per year to my bill... I was willing to pay that, but no more.

They obviously thought they could just send me a large bill ($500+ and I would pay it), not.

And these people that get $1,000, $5,000, $15,000 bills because of either lies or the cellular company's mistakes...too many to count. I for one, having first hand experience, believe you.

Solution is simple: Do not buy their service any more.

In fact, continue searching, until you see zero complaints for three or more years, do not purchase service through that company.

The first time I had over a 5 year positive track record; the second time I had over a 3 year positive track record. (Positive track record = I paid my bill every month)

None of the companies care about any of us, their customer no service - to - collections policies prove this.

None of them deserve to succeed.

I will NOT use them until I see 3+ years of NO NEW COMPLAINTS. As of today, April 2009, they all have new complaints....they suck.

Re:Bits are bits!!!!

[ceoyoyo]

Because they hate it when their customers call up when they get their $10,000 bill and complain.

Since Joe Average has no intuitive idea what a gigabyte is, it's much easier to sell him "unlimited" bandwidth and then make sure there's no way he could possibly use enough to be a problem.

You Ask The Wrong Questions

[rsmith-mac]

Does this mean that apps in the Market have to adhere to the ToS for only T-Mobile, even when other carriers sign on? Will all apps have to adhere to the ToS for every carrier that supports Android phones?

You're asking the wrong questions, those are not the only possible outcomes. You need to take a look at option #3: Some apps will be restricted to customers of certain carriers. So the Anroid Market will not sell a tethering app to a T-Mobile customer because T-Mobile won't allow it, but they will to customers of [insert fictional non-sucky carrier here].

The "solution" doesn't need to be something complicated like trying to harmonize every carrier's TOS. Every carrier is different, and Google will respond to each of their different needs, just as they do when giving them Android in the first place.

Re:You Ask The Wrong Questions

[Macrat]

So the Anroid Market will not sell a tethering app to a T-Mobile customer because T-Mobile won't allow it, but they will to customers of [insert fictional non-sucky carrier here].

Any proof that this is because of T-Mobile?

Re:You Ask The Wrong Questions

[Anonymous Coward]

So the Anroid Market will not sell a tethering app to a T-Mobile customer because T-Mobile won't allow it, but they will to customers of [insert fictional non-sucky carrier here].

Any proof that this is because of T-Mobile?

Oh, I don't know... the article? Or hell, even the summary?

I know this is /., but how hard is it to read those?

Just a little mistake, it's already been fixed

[Virak]

Quoth Ars Technica's article on this same thing (which was updated well before Slashdot's was posted):

A Google spokesperson tells Ars, "We inadvertently unpublished the applications for all carriers, and today we have corrected the problem so that all Android Market users outside the T-Mobile US network will now have access to the applications. We have notified the affected developers."

And while I'm sure some people will complain about it being blocked to anyone at all, the fault here lies with T-Mobile. While it'd be nice if Google could dictate terms as it pleased to the carriers, I somehow don't think that'd go over too well. And on top of that, you don't even *need* to get software from the Android Market to install it (insert jab at iPhone here).

Re:Tether Different (tm)

[PenguSven]

The real problem see, is that the wombats all dig up the fibre that gets laid in the ground, and the koalas are constantly climbing mobile ("cell" for you yanks) phone towers and humping the berjesus out of the exposed equipment. Course thats nothing when you compare it to what the dingos do...

Im sure the issue is its for ROOTED phones

[bedammit]

I doubt it was pulled simply because its a tethering app. Its likely because it promotes people to root their phones. Start screaming when they ban pdanet...

yawn...

Re:Im sure the issue is its for ROOTED phones

[bedammit]

Wow! Its back up on the market and they appear to condone rooting your phone as long as you are outside the US. The tethering app will only be available to people outside the US. poor us! We cant catch a break

Why bound to a single carrier?

[nephridium]

I was so enthusiastic when I read about android, being open source, free as is speech etc.. But then, the more I read and saw about the actual products the more I was whipped back into line, the coup de grace obviously being the very non-free-as-in-speech decision to sell it only through T-Mobile (and whatever that entails), just like previously the iPhone, (which Android phones where supposed to show how we do things in the "free" world).

So after all this I decided for Nokia's 5800XM (cheaper now), which seems to do it just right. I am not bound to a specific carrier and added to that there was the recent announcement that they'll make the Symbian OS open source. I've installed Python on it (which has a very alive developer community) and now have easy direct access to the Bluetooth functions, phonebook, camera, music player, GPS etc.

Add to that an easily replaceable 1320 mAh battery (very useful especially when excessively using the internal GPS :p), Wifi and a slot for 16GB microSDs... - open source/Python and kick-ass hardware, what more could one want from a phone?

Re:Why bound to a single carrier?

[Karlt1]

So after all this I decided for Nokia's 5800XM [engadgetmobile.com] (cheaper now), which seems to do it just right. I am not bound to a specific carrier and added to that there was the recent announcement [slashdot.org] that they'll make the Symbian OS open source. I've installed Python [nokia.com] on it (which has a very alive [nokia.com] developer community) and now have easy direct access to the Bluetooth functions, phonebook, camera, music player, GPS etc.

So since the phone is GSM only you have the choice of two carriers in the US. Lucky you.

Re:Why bound to a single carrier?

[Vegeta99]

How many CDMA carriers are there?

Sprint? Verizon? Alltel? Oh, wait, Alltel's Verizon now.

Two choices for CDMA, and yo' shit naw gonna work anywhere but fuckin' Canada!

VPN traffic is also being blocked as of this week

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been tethering my G1 for the past month, using CiscoVPN to connect to various clients. Today, VPN stopped working. HTTP traffic and the like seem to go through, but it appears that T-Mobile is filtering those VPN ports. Grrrrrr..

T-Mobile's tech support didn't get the memo.

[WolfWings]

Oookay, if T-Mobile bans tethering their phones, why have they helped me and my mom seperately to configure their phones to tether over bluetooth to our laptops? Hell, I'm running Linux, that didn't even phase them, they still helped me find the command-strings I needed!

Re:T-Mobile's tech support didn't get the memo.

[Krizdo4]

Oookay, if T-Mobile bans tethering their phones, why have they helped me and my mom seperately to configure their phones to tether over bluetooth to our laptops? Hell, I'm running Linux, that didn't even phase them, they still helped me find the command-strings I needed!

Tech support that helped with Linux settings? Wow, that's actually kind of cool.

Re:T-Mobile's tech support didn't get the memo.

[Anonymous Coward]

if T-Mobile bans tethering their phones, why have they helped me and my mom seperately to configure their phones to tether over bluetooth to our laptops?

Achievement or it didn't happen.

This meme's going to get old really fast, isn't it.

Re:T-Mobile's tech support didn't get the memo.

[WolfWings]

The support was limited to "here's the init string our documents say you'll need, but you'll need to figure out which file to edit to set it" since bluetooth tethering is 'pair device, send plan-specific (but not user-specific) init string, dial #99*' for anything GPRS.

It's kinda sad when it's simpler to tether a cell phone to a laptop for internet access in the middle of the Pacific ocean on an island than it is to set up most printers...

But yeah, didn't blink when I said I just needed the init strings and I was working under Linux so I couldn't follow their prompts for how to get to the spot to enter stuff. They were willing to skim through their scripts to the juicy bits instead of just hanging up on me.

Re:T-Mobile's tech support didn't get the memo.

[geminidomino]

Achievement or it didn't happen.

This meme's going to get old really fast, isn't it.

Already has.

Please join my movement

[JustNiz]

There's an increasingly popular scam being perpitrated on consumers as more and more devices coming onto the market do not give full control of their functionality to the person who actually bought and paid for it, because the seller wants a marketing model that allows them to double-dip or extort more money for old rope.
I now refuse to buy any product that does not give me, the owner, total control and use of it in any way I like.
Please join me in making this your policy too.
The only way we can end this problem is to send over-greedy manufacturers and service providers out of business. Lets put the power back in the hands of the consumers where it should belong.

Re:Please join my movement

[fucket]

I'll join. How much does it cost?

If only it wasn't April 1st...

[erroneus]

There are likely some people who think this is one of the thousands of joke stories that destroy the funniness of jokes by seriously over-doing it.

But hopefully people will take it seriously that Google is not more than "just a business." It is a business that has gathered up a lot of good will which it has been steadily spending over the past few years. They are a business that exists to sell advertising. They are a marketing company. Marketing companies, in my view, are just about as annoying as any business can be. In short, they make money by putting stuff in front of your eyes that you probably don't want to see.

And they do business with other businesses whose interests are primarily in getting the money in your pockets, your bank accounts and "money you haven't earned yet." [read: DEBT] In order to keep their business partners happy, Google has to abide by their wishes. [read: DEMANDS] If they didn't Google would be out of business because we don't give anything to Google except our eyeballs, which they, in turn, sell to their business clients. (In other words, Google == "Pimpin' Yer Eyes out to people who want your money!")

Google may have made promises, but so did Obama. I did not vote for Obama, but I hoped he would carry through with his... didn't work out that way and neither did Google. In the end, if you want "not evil" you will have to do it yourself.

Um, so?

[fabs64]

Google don't want to provide free hosting for an app that pisses off one of their partners. BFD.

I hardly see the issue, the guys who wrote this app were surely aware that google wouldn't want to subsidise its distribution?

There's nothing stopping them just hosting it themselves.

Re:I suppose if all you do is change lost passwds.

[RiotingPacifist]

doesn't solve which problem?
you can if you wish install the app, just google won't help you break your TOS, sounds fair

Re:you can buy Android apps from outside the marke

[shutdown -p now]

On the other hand, can't carriers specifically modify the phones that they sell to disable this functionality (just as they do with Java phones)?

There's also more than one iPhone store

[SuperKendall]

What's weird to me is that people like to get all high and mighty about how other phones can download any app they want - when the iPhone can too.

The reality is that all phones will end up with a primary centralized store, and then a much greyer area where you can easily make the phone do whatever you like - for any phone.

Re:There's also more than one iPhone store

[Mr2001]

But you have to jailbreak your iPhone to use those, a step which many people are unwilling to take (and which is, shall we say, not encouraged by the manufacturer or carrier).

You don't have to root your G1 to download an app from outside the Android Market. You only have to click a check box and open the browser.

Re:There's also more than one iPhone store

[drinkypoo]

The reality is that all phones will end up with a primary centralized store, and then a much greyer area where you can easily make the phone do whatever you like - for any phone.

Most people are not going to hack their phone and void their warranty (and possibly their replacement plan) just to get some third-party applications. The app store devalues third-party distributed software by creating the impression that it is inferior. We're talking about the mass market here, so to even bring up Cydia is disingenuous in the extreme (or perhaps just incredibly ignorant.)

Re:There's also more than one iPhone store

[asdfghjklqwertyuiop]

Does apple sell and support a completely unlocked iphone like google does for the G1?

Re:There's also more than one iPhone store

[SuperKendall]

Most people are not going to hack their phone and void their warranty (and possibly their replacement plan)

That's bullshit, since you can simply un-jailbreak the phone. Unlocking the phone would be an issue because that's not as easily undone and they can see your carrier if you go into the store to have work done - but we aren't talking about unlocking, just jailbreaking.

I guess you were just ignorant as to that basic fact.

The app store devalues third-party distributed software by creating the impression that it is inferior.

And the Android app store does not have the same effect how again?

Not that I actually agree with that point either. A tethering app is not on either app store (in the US) and yet is I would say valued the same by potential users.

Re:There's also more than one iPhone store

[drinkypoo]

Most people are not going to hack their phone and void their warranty (and possibly their replacement plan)

That's bullshit, since you can simply un-jailbreak the phone.

Not if it makes your phone stop working. So far it hasn't. Apple could release a software update which interacts poorly with it and breaks everything, then blame it on Cydia and surely carry it off well enough to convince the masses of iFanboys they did nothing wrong.

I guess you were just ignorant as to that basic fact.

Wow, your chutzpah is amazing. Too bad you're wrong, kid. Now you're just an idiot. In theory you can un-jailbreak the phone. Again, if it somehow later causes you a problem (which might not be Cydia's fault or anything, as previously stated) then you might just be boned unless you can hook up with someone for a hardware reflash.

The app store devalues third-party distributed software by creating the impression that it is inferior.

And the Android app store does not have the same effect how again?

Show me where I said it didn't.

Re:There's also more than one iPhone store

[SuperKendall]

Not if it makes your phone stop working. So far it hasn't. Apple could release a software update which interacts poorly with it

You don't have to install software updates.

In theory you can un-jailbreak the phone.

The reality is you can. You continue in your efforts to show yourself to be utterly ignorant of how things work, instead of how you imagine they might be.

Show me where I said it didn't.

I'm sorry, I had thought you meant to make some kind of point instead of typing to see the pretty letters flow on the screen. My mistake.

I'll let you have the last response since idiots always demand they have the last word, I guess to cement the reputation they are building.

.... aren't so ... after all ...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Maybe Android and the Android Market aren't so open after all."

Well, maybe Google isn't so "do-no-evil" after all.

Maybe... it's The Matrix in the making!

Boo-hoo!

Re:I suppose if all you do is change lost passwds.

[fractoid]

What in the world makes you think that Google can't feed different "Google Store" pages to different users based on carrier?

What in the world makes you think that Google would want to fragment their app base into lots of little segments based on inane carrier licenses, and force devs to put out umpteen different versions of each app? They want people to actually develop for the platform, y'know.

Is there anything in the licensing agreement to prevent someone else starting up a rival App Store clone that just provides apps without caring about telcos' evilness?

CADIE

[Anonymous Coward]

This sounds like the work of CADIE!

Works for me

[ingsocsoc]

Using the Android Dev Phone in Australia, the program appears on the Market and I can use it fine. Even if you are on T-Mobile, all you have to do is go to the developer's site: http://code.google.com/p/android-wifi-tether/ and install the apk file. The app only works if you already have root access, so installing the app manually shouldn't be a issue!

Everything-over-IP wireless carrier

[200_success]

ZER01 Mobile plans to implement more or less what you just described: a wireless network where everything is just data over IP. Calls would be VoIP, unlimited for a fixed monthly price. Subscribers buy their own phone up front with no long-term contracts.

They will be a mobile virtual network operator, using AT&T's 3G network. They will have their own backhaul, so they can implement their own Internet usage policies.

Re:Everything-over-IP wireless carrier

[QuijiboIsAWord]

Close, except that zer01 isn't an MVNO. The story about them using AT&T's 3G network was incorrect, the interviewer made some assumptions about what they're doing.

http://www.dennispr.com/zer01.html

According to them, they've got interconnect agreements that eliminate the need to lease bandwidth the way an MVNO typically does.

Google Lost It

[edivad]

Google had the opportunity to create a truly free device, where developers could create software they wanted, accessing all the services the device provide, and users were free to install it. Without the signing crap, central repository, and restrictions of such sort.
After all, people pays and own their own devices, so they should be free to do whatever they want with them.
But no, they decided to mimic Apple.

Re:Google Lost It

[magamiako1]

You pay and own the device. You do not own the service.

Keep that in mind when making your argument.

Re:Tether Different (tm)

[Anonymous Coward]

My mouse slipped and I gave you informative instead of funny - it's your lucky day

Open Platform

[Roger W Moore]

Google isn't going to allow apps that annoy the carriers....they probably won't be banning apps simply because they don't fit into Google's view of what you 'should' be doing

Sorry but you contradict yourself here. Clearly Google's world view is that you should not be annoying the carriers and so ban apps that do. So its a slightly different set of criteria from Apple but neither of them are yours or my criteria which is really what matters. At least Apple don't have the gall to push the iPhone/iTouch as an open platform.

Re:Open Platform

[Draek]

His reasoning seems to be as follows: Google bans applications that go against their carrier's wishes. Apple bans applications that go against their carrier's wishes *and* those that would otherwise be accepted by the carriers but that they, themselves, dislike. Therefore it stands to reason that you'll get access to more applications through Google, even though you probably won't get as many as you would with a completely open platform.

Probably, because it seems that Google, unlike Apple, has no problem allowing alternate ways of installing apps to the phone, so it's less a "I don't want your app on *my* platform" and more of a "I don't wanna advertise your app on my store".

Re:Open Platform

[mdwh2]

Clearly Google's world view is that you should not be annoying the carriers and so ban apps that do.

Correction: they don't allow you to download an application from their store, if it breaks the TOS of your network.

You can still download this application if your network allows this (see an earlier comment - apparently there was a temporary mistake when they unintentionally removed it for all networks). You are free to download applications from any other place on the Internet - just like every other phone out there, except the Iphone. You want to tether, or download an app, it Just Works.

With Apple however, you have no way of tethering AFAIK, nor any way to download apps from elsewhere, unless you jailbreak the phone.

At least Apple don't have the gall to push the iPhone/iTouch as an open platform.

No, but people claim it "Just Works".

If tethering is what I think it is..

[AbRASiON]

You guys have it so bad in the states with mobile phones :(
Rarely do the rest of the world look at the US consumers and feel sorry for you, between price matching, rebates, sales - the majority of your goods are so cheap it sometimes defies logic.

None the less, paying to receive SMS = bullshit
paying to receive phone calls? = bullshit

and if tethering is what I think it is (attaching a phone to the PC, to use as a modem?) well I can do that with my 7 year old SE T-630 over bluetooth here....
Not cool

Re:If tethering is what I think it is..

[lamapper]

None the less, paying to receive SMS = bullshit

paying to receive phone calls? = bullshit

Great post...keep em coming. Too many people over here believe the corporate FUD!

The lobbiest for the Telecom / Cellular community here in America has been extremely successful. They have successfully stagnated and prevented innovation since before 1996. And they continue today.

They pay politicians, get money to provide service, do NOT provide the service, complain that it is too expensive, get more money from politicians in their pockets, use money to buy out competition...never do they give us the service they promise.

The industries best today in America is FIOS, and it is capped at 45 MBPS down...do not know what up is, not that it matters.

Anything less than 100MB / 100MB for less than $55 per month as Japan has had since 2000 is unacceptable anyway.

To add insult to injury, after taking billions for years, since before 1996, we still have nothing to show for it. The FIOS people are spending more money trying to convince people that they are getting something great in advertising, instead of building out their fiber offerings.

Many of us are waiting for a new competitor to enter the market, when that happens, these Anti-American telcoms (all of them) will get their comeuppance.

Even if they drop their prices below that of the competitor that is first to offer 100 MB / 100 MB for less than $55 per month; I will never do business with them again. Why encourage them to do tomorrow what they have been doing to all Americans for over two decades....

Nope, they blew the wad when their customer no service antics combined with their political lobbying resulted in less service and less choice. The LOST OUR TRUST!

I for one, will never give them a chance to mess with my TRUST ever again.

Please keep making posts to help wake up Americans, as the companies want us to stay asleep so they can continue raping, pillaging and burning, they are the new Vikings and Americans need to see them for what they are.

Between the search engines and Rip Off Reports, you can learn just had bad all the Telecom and Cellular companies really are...pathetic.

Port Forwarding part of development toolbox

[RotHorseKid]

Hey, what about that app that provides a http proxy on the phone so you can forward your http traffic to the phone via adb and an USB connection? It's what I use if I can get no wifi conn.
Yes, I know it's not REAL tethering, has no WiFi, and is considerably awkward to use, but it does what most people actually need from a tethered phone.
It's not even on the market. I believe Google just did this to make T-Mobile stop whining about how their classic revenue streams dry up. Poor end users.

iPhone OS More Open Than Android?

[macs4all]

I don't want to hear one more word, whining about how "closed" the iPhone OS, SDK, or App Store is. iPhone is now (or soon will be) officially more "open" than Android.

You really do NOT need cellular anyway, thus fear

[lamapper]

Just purchase a Nokia N800 running OS2008 Linux or other Linux hand held that has built in WiFi. You will find that in 80% of the places you spend significant time, your home, your work being the two at the top of the list, you have FREE WiFi.

Forget Windows CE or any other OS where the cellular companies are controlling what they can and can NOT do as in this example...assuming it is not an April Fools post.

Thus you do NOT have to pay a monthly FEE for service.

The industry has been fighting this losing battle for years, by attempting to force chip and board manufacturers NOT to release their technology on WiFi, but cellular. That way they can use their networks and charge monthly fees.

Fine if you want to pay monthly fees, especially in this down economy. But when those same companies practice customer no service policies with increased phantom bills (for services you did not use, or mistakes they made, but try to charge you) what do you expect.

Hand helds based on the Maemo open source software project will keep you safe.

343 different applications available for the Nokia N800 and N810using the OS2008 software that is based on Maemo...

Add in VoIP at a cost from FREE (VoIP under Linux, Asterisk) to less than $100 per year (Skype) and you have a real winning combination.

I second many others who have stated the obvious, the providers provide pipes, nothing more. Any time they have provided more, it either limits or degrades the service the user experiences. Not because it has to, but because their billing model (monthly) demands it to be so.

Simple solution, stop buying them. Get a hand held that runs on Maemo open source software project, thus you can run Linux and use FREE WiFi. Game over.

I am surprised that no one has created a server driven ad model for WiFi and/or cellular text messaging. It would make a ton of money.

Let fools who want to text via cellular pay that monthly expense, and those more intelligent users that connect via Ethernet or WiFi to the internet can text for FREE to their hearts content. Add in accounts and do NOT exclude anyone for any reason....offer a one line add and make more money then you spend in providing service.

Gadgetry

[SpaghettiPattern]

There was I contemplating an Anroid based phone, knowing that it's open nature would allow hooking up my notebook. Why would I browse through a letter box when I have a 17'' screen at hand?

The ToS with T-Mobile seems to degrade Anroid based phones to gadgets. One compelling reason NOT to buy.

Re:Gadgetry

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to rehash another AC: "Fortunately, Android phones can install applications that aren't on the Android Market. You can find Tetherbot (not the application mentioned in TFA, but it has similar functionality and, wasn't available when I checked a minute ago) at http://graha.ms/androidproxy/, with step by step instructions to using it at here."

Re:Gadgetry

[_egg]

There are now two full-featured, easy-to-use, free alternatives to Tetherbot.

WiFi Tether for Android
http://code.google.com/p/android-wifi-tether

aNetShare
http://android.a0soft.com/?url=aNetShare.htm

(If I could post QR codes here, I would...)

something is fishy

[speedtux]

To be fair, cellular bandwidth is fundamentally limited, and has been extremely costly to deploy. It's not particularly surprising that the carriers want to recoup their investment.

Unlimited 3G plans (including tethering) in Europe are a fraction of what they are here in the US, and that is with more government regulations, more usage, and more available services. In fact, 3G in Europe isn't even an issue anymore--you get it everywhere--carriers are mostly done deploying 3.5G and have started 4G deployment.

Re:something is fishy

[TheRaven64]

Not sure about the rest of Europe, but I don't know of anyone deploying 4G in the UK. Most of the networks are rolling out some kind of HSPA system, which is either 3.5G or 3.75G, depending on who you ask and which revision you deploy.

Data isn't hugely expensive here; there are some reasonably-priced pre-pay HSPA options which are good for casual users, since you can pay just for the days or months when you use data. The caps tend to be around 1-3GB/month though, with 15GB/month being the largest I've seen. Only the ones with the very low bandwidth caps prohibit tethering (and I've never seen that enforced. The T&Cs on my last contract prohibited tethering and IM, but I ran Jabber on my laptop through it several times without receiving any complaints and did nothing to obfuscate the traffic; it ran on the standard port), but the plans aimed for laptop use don't. T-Mobile even sells docking stations that share your connection over WiFi.

Re:something is fishy

[Xtravar]

In the US, you are more likely to live in a rural or suburban areas yet still require cellular access.

Open OS not open Market

[Walker_Boh_Druid]

Just because the project and OS are open source doesn't mean Google's Marketplace have to be. Anyone who's used the phone knows it's incredibly simple to install apps from the web without using the marketplace at all. Banning it from the marketplace isn't banning it from the phone, it's merely Google's way of saying they're not condoning this type of use. It's still possible to tether.

Re:Open OS not open Market

[DigitalSorceress]

Excellent point. The problem with the iPhone is that without jailbreaking, you can only EVER do to your iPhone what Apple will allow.

Google is not being evil here. The phone's wide open as you say... Google has every right to determine what they will and won't allow in their store. The difference is that you can easily work around it without having to violate the DMCA or risking that google will kill your phone the way Apple does.

Explaining the cost of SMS

[Anonymous Coward]

Wikipedia: âoeThe GSM system is optimised for telephony, since this was identified as its main application. The key idea for SMS was to use this telephony-optimised system and to transport messages on the signalling paths needed to control the telephony traffic during time periods when no signalling traffic existed. In this way unused resources in the system could be used to transport messages without additional cost. But it was necessary to limit the length of the messages to 128 bytes (later improved to 160 characters), so that the messages could fit into the existing signalling formats.â

So SMS uses expensive GSM channels with guaranteed latency and such. Does your ISP has any guarantees about latency? Do you think the inventors of SMS in 1980s predicted how SMS would be used decades later?

Re:Explaining the cost of SMS

[Directrix1]

Yes, because people can really push through some massive amounts of bandwidth. Like 2 bytes/second tops (typing rate)? That's totally expensive. And I don't know about your SMS, but low latency is hardly what I think of when I think of SMS.

It's what I was told

[ed]

I have the £5 unlimited web use on my T-Mobile G1, but was explicitly told "No using this connected to your PC/Laptop for Internet access"

They want to sell you a dongle for that I suppose

Re:It's what I was told

[oliderid]

Well I've got an old Sony-Ericsson p990i (2006) with a built-in USB modem. I wonder how they could control such things.

Re:It's what I was told

[SenseiLeNoir]

the £5 a month unlimited web use is only for Web Access via the phone. There is a version which allows laptop and modem use its about £11 a month, and also allows you to use T-Mobile hotspots.

Awesome

[BountyX]

Thanks to this article I now have tethering on my G1 ^_^

SMS cost explained

[IdahoEv]

1) Despite the cost, people pay it.
2) Thereby making the networks craploads of money.

Incentive to change it? Nil.

Re:SMS cost explained

[easyTree]

People pay it because the mobile operators appear as a cartel - so the consumer has no choice.

Re:I suppose if all you do is change lost passwds.

[TheP4st]

What in the world makes you think that Google would want to fragment their app base into lots of little segments based on inane carrier licenses, and force devs to put out umpteen different versions of each app?

"A Google spokesperson tells Ars, "We inadvertently unpublished the applications for all carriers, and today we have corrected the problem so that all Android Market users outside the T-Mobile US network will now have access to the applications. We have notified the affected developers."

Re:I suppose if all you do is change lost passwds.

[fractoid]

Hmm... actually, yeah, that could very well make you think that.

Google network

[witherstaff]

The telco world is owned by monopolies with the government giving protectionist laws to the existing monopolies. The telco lobby is huge. We don't need new government rules, we need to get rid of many of the existing ones.

It's not a big surprise that verizon is the largest cell provider, the Incumbent providers are government mandated to be used by any telco usage. This is also true in the ISP world - the reason the big telcos (Other than cable) are the basically the only ISPs left standing.

Since most people keep voting for the same types of politician this won't be changing anytime soon. Maybe Google will get tired of cell phone providers enough to go ahead with making their own network. Only a multi billion powerhouse like Google could change up the existing structure. I doubt it but it'd be nice.

Re:Google network

[moosesocks]

The telco world is owned by monopolies with the government giving protectionist laws to the existing monopolies.

AT&T disagrees with you.

Developper G1 in Europe

[dargaud]

I've been following the Android saga with interest. Are there development phones with it available out of the US, in Europe ?

Re:Developper G1 in Europe

[BlackCreek]

The easiest and cheapest way to have a ADP is to buy the regular locked G1. Root, flash the OS, and flash the boot-ROM. Effectively turning your G1 into a ADP.

Take a look at the Dream Development forum at XDA for more information.

IMMV.

I truly am lucky

[Anonymous Coward]

I gotta say I am lucky to live where I do. I pay 10 euros per month for a 512kbit/s (that's pretty much actual speed, I pay for 384kbit/s but it works at 500ish kbit/s for some reason) and they pretty much encourage people to pay that to be able to use their mobile phones as modems for their laptops. Even more so they encourage people to buy same kind of data plan bundled with a 3G modem.

There are faster connections available too, of course.

Re:Tether Different (tm)

[Zebedeu]

Course thats nothing when you compare it to what the dingos do...

They eat your babies?

Tethering? Easier ways to burn money

[noidentity]

I just looked it up and "tethering" is using the cell phone as as an internet connection for a PC. If one wants to burn money quickly, there are much simpler ways, like matches.

Re:Tethering? Easier ways to burn money

[DaveV1.0]

When I had SprintPCS, I also had the unlimited "Vision" plan which allowed for unlimited internet access from the phone. I could tether and surf all I wanted for an extra $10.00 per month.

Re:you can buy Android apps from outside the marke

[DaFallus]

Unlike the iPhone, there is more than one market for the Android platform.

Wrong. With a jail-broken iPhone, you can buy apps from the new Cydia Store. If you have 10 minutes and can press two buttons at once, you can jailbreak an iPhone.

Re:you can buy Android apps from outside the marke

[mdwh2]

With a jail-broken

There's your problem.

I don't want to have to hack my phone, I expect it to Just Work.

And even though I could follow the instructions to do so if I had to, do you honestly expect that random members of the public can do so? This isn't a case of "pressing two buttons at once"[*], the point is that most people won't realise you have to "jailbreak" their phone, or even have a clue what it is.

[*] And I can't help laughing at the irony - whatever happened to "one mouse button is easier, because most users get confused with two"?

Re:Tether Different (tm)

[smooth wombat]

The real problem see, is that the wombats all dig up the fibre that gets laid in the ground,

I can't help it. Digging is what I do. If you don't want your fibre to be dug up, hang it from the poles.

Now get out of my ground you wippersnapper!

Re:You really do NOT need cellular anyway, thus fe

[Electrawn]

At Home: Broadband on a computer terminal.
At Work: OC3 on a computer workstation.

Between the two: The train, without wifi.

In that 80% of the time I want to use Internet on the tiny screen that is my phone...there is no wifi available. I am sure many other users are the same way.

Plus the carrier's internet connection is probably much more secure than open wifi.

Re:You really do NOT need cellular anyway, thus fe

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah free WiFi everywhere I go... it's one of those things some random person on the interwebs keeps talking about, but you never actually find in the Real World.

/me looks at the date

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, yesterday was April 1st.

Return It For False Advertising

[CritterNYC]

IANAL, but as the CEO himself had said they wouldn't crack down on people tethering, I believe you have a case of false advertising in most states and could now return your phone if you so desired.

Re:Return It For False Advertising

[Lemmy Caution]

I remembered this, but it turns out it was the CTO, and it was a little less encouraging that you characterize it:

From http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/23/t-mobiles-cto-on-g1-unlocking-and-tethering-plus-a-few-detai/:

When asked about what T-Mobile's reaction would be to users creating tethering or unlocking apps for the phone, he was surprisingly even-keeled, noting that while the company didn't encourage the practice, they wouldn't lock down the OS or update the software to break those applications. Our impression was that as long as their use was relegated to a small percentage of owners, T-Mobile likely wouldn't take action, though he did voice concerns over tethering apps and their effect on the network, with a clearly guarded eye to letting users have free reign.

Didn't we already learn how to deal with this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't get your software from someone whose duties are to anyone other than users. Get your phone from a hardware munufacturer, get apps from the Debian repository, and your IP packet routing from some provider. No connections between these parties. means no bullshit for you.

T-Mobile Bans Tethering?? That's News to Me!

[carney1979]

I've tethered my Blackberries on vacation. In fact, I used the instructions from this web site: http://us.t-mobile.mywds.com/configurator/gt.asp?_api=GetAllProductsInClass&ClassId=100000001526 Maybe T-Mobile just doesn't want you to tether the G1?

Re:T-Mobile Bans Tethering?? That's News to Me!

[Lemmy Caution]

You are correct: T-Mobile supports (even if informally, and not just passively: their help desk emailed me the docs) tethering for other phones, including my ancient Nokia 6086.

I've long been a happy T-Mobile customer, because their customer service has always been helpful and relatively flexible, but this whole debacle with the G1 is ridiculous. While the G1 is still more open than the iPhone, this is still unacceptable to me. Figure out how much it will cost you to provide tethering to the market at a price-point that reflects the availability of bandwidth, and do it, people: it's not that hard.

Re:Tether Different (tm)

[Anonymous Coward]

damn do I wish I had mod points.

bravo

OK, now explain the cross-carrier uniform pricing

[alispguru]

The only explanation I can see for all the carriers charging the same price to consumers for a service that literally costs them nothing to provide...

is collusion.

Not actually against ToS of T-mobile

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have a g1 so I can't verify this, but according to http://www.mobilecomputermag.co.uk/200811061044/turn-your-g1-into-a-tethered-3g-modem.html the ToS of T-mobile (for web'n'walk) is "Remember that you can only use web'n'walk in the UK and you can't use your phone as a modem or use web'n'walk for peer to peer file sharing."

Given that a modem is "modulator, demodulator" and I would expect the banned application to use IPv4 (and avoid any modulation/demodulation) there is modem is involved. It follows that the application isn't specifically against the ToS (although it could be used for peer to peer file sharing).

Re:Tether Different (tm)

[Ihmhi]

Is that 40 real dollars, or 40 dollars in your Australian funny money?

Re:If only people would

[edittard]

'nt start a sentence in the subject line and continue in the body of the post.

Come on

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course they aren't going to allow this. They have to bend to the will of the carriers, and this is the best example, along with there no VOIP rule. It sucks, but they have to do it.

Re:OK, now explain the cross-carrier uniform prici

[Registered Coward v2]

The only explanation I can see for all the carriers charging the same price to consumers for a service that literally costs them nothing to provide...

is collusion.

Simple. price transparency and low switching costs (out of contract) means that unless you sufficiently differentiate your product you will charge what the lowest product in the market costs and prices will converge. That does not mean you colluded on pricing; just that when one competitor sets a price the others follow or lose customers. As a note, not all pricing is uniform across US cell phone carriers. As long as no competitor is really stupid everyone makes money. The airlines do this as well except they have some real stupid competitors so pricing often is ruinous to all.

It's really simple economics and game theory.

So what does this have to do with android again?

[rgviza]

This is a carrier's policy not Google or Android...
ATT will allow you to tether, but you have to buy a tethering plan for $60 a month.

This is kinda stupid tho since the "unlimited" internet plan has a 6GB limit and so does the tethering plan. Why should they care how you use your bandwidth? Ghey... I can download a 4GB movie to my phone, at the same speed then transfer it to my computer. Not that I'd ever waste 4 out of my 6GB doing that.

You can just tether your phone anyway, but if you get caught they'll switch on the tethering plan and charge you for it.

Carriers are freaking whacked. that's the only thing that can possibly explain their guaranteeing that hardly anyone will use the coolest features of mobile devices.

If someone opened a carrier with a good network, and without stupid restrictions like that, ATT would go out of business. Don't even say Verizon because they lock everything out of their phones.

-Viz

Depends on what you meant

[SuperKendall]

Does apple sell and support a completely unlocked iphone like google does for the G1?

Simple answer: Yes, in some regions like Hong Kong.

But then, you didn't mean "unlocked" as in carrier unlocked. You meant "shipped to be able to deploy any apps".

Since all you have to do is download Cydia, the answer is still yes - all iPhones ship in a way the user can unlock them.

Because you see, I think about the practical reality of what an average end user can do with the phone, not what comes right in the box.

The practical reality is that any user, even my mother, could use a Cydia based app if they found it compelling enough to try. The same issue that any app being sold outside official channels (like the Android store) will face.

Re:Depends on what you meant

[asdfghjklqwertyuiop]

I may be full of crap, but if I read correctly, Cydia requires you jailbreak the phone first. And if I understand correctly, apple doesn't like this and tries to reverse it or prevent you from doing it in subsequent versions of the phone OS or whatever.

Anyway, that was my point - google sells a version of the phone fully expecting you to add whatever code you want to it without their approval and doesn't try to keep you from doing that.

Re:Depends on what you meant

[SuperKendall]

I may be full of crap, but if I read correctly, Cydia requires you jailbreak the phone first.

That is correct.

And if I understand correctly, apple doesn't like this and tries to reverse it or prevent you from doing it in subsequent versions of the phone OS or whatever.

That is incorrect. Cydia installs often make use of hacks that are in fact bugs, and Apple tends to fix those - meaning that jailbreaking the latest OS version might have to wait a week or two.

However, Apple updates do not generally break jailbroken phones. You can update and usually still keep working, though of course some of the third party apps may not work if they relied on something undocumented that changed.

You are thinking of carrier unlocking, the thing that updates can actually break in bad ways - because that involves changing the phone at a low level.

Anyway, that was my point - google sells a version of the phone fully expecting you to add whatever code you want to it without their approval and doesn't try to keep you from doing that.

But the approval is irrelevant to the consumer, that is what *I* am saying. Only what they can actually do is relevant, at least in terms of what can be done by the average user.

If Jailbreaking required breaking out the terminal and doing arcane things, I would not raise it as a point. But it's as easy as installing an application, literally anyone can do so, and there's no danger in doing so - which is why jailbroken phones have a pretty huge base at this point. Big enough that there's a whole alternate app store that you can put any application you like on it.

It just seems like it's ignoring the elephant in the room to pretend iPhone users and app developers have no freedom when it is plain to see.

Re:Depends on what you meant

[Mr2001]

If Jailbreaking required breaking out the terminal and doing arcane things, I would not raise it as a point. But it's as easy as installing an application, literally anyone can do so, and there's no danger in doing so

If this guide is accurate, it's a little more involved than that. Certainly more complicated, and scarier for the average user, than what you need to do to enable an Android phone to run non-Market apps (4 clicks - no need to even hook it up to a computer).

It's simply disingenuous to pretend that iPhone is on the same level as Android when it comes to running arbitrary software. Yes, technically you can do it if you put in the effort, but it's not a trivial process, and you have to violate the intentions and recommendations of the manufacturer/carrier (and, allegedly, copyright law) to do it.

Re:

[clint999]

Google seem to be being perfectly reasonable. They They are doing enough to keep the carriers happy, but only that. In addition, AFAIK, the platform is more open then Apple's so you can obtain the application from elsewhere and install it without jail breaking.

Not really "unlimited" is it?

[mrraven]

Then they are LYING when they say they are selling us unlimited bandwidth and ought to be sued for breach of contract.

Re:You really do NOT need cellular anyway, thus fe

[lamapper]

Great post I agree that the majority of us are in similar boats, or trains so to speak. Obviously riding a train, bus or metro is not the same as driving a car; even there it always should come down to Personal Responsibility.

There is probably not much you can do at work without approval from someone, though it can be as cheap as it can be at home for the entire office if you boss is so inclined. If you have a formal IT department, talk to them. However if you do NOT have formal IT, you could run it by your boss and add it to the network. There are many ways to make it secure, even down to NOT having it broadcast its presence, thus no hackers can see it. If you do decide to get a router for work or home, make sure you ONLY purchase a DD-WRT supported router. The DD-WRT open source software gives you some great additional capabilities normally only found on routers costing hundreds for routers costing in the $15 - $60 range.

I take exception with this FUD that you appear, as many, to have bought into...:

...is probably much more secure than open wifi.

Whether your WiFi is open or not should not matter. In fact we should all keep our WiFi open and available for all as we have choice, between SSH, SFTP, VPNs, secure ID/passwords, VLANs and more; so there is no reason to worry about open WiFi anymore. I like many get tired of the industry scare tactics and FUD.

Stop buying into the Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, the FUD, spread by the FEAR mongering corporations that want to charge all of us monthly fees and provide as little service as possible.

Monthly fees in and of themselves are NOT necessarily a bad thing, especially if the company is innovative and truly providing service.

Why have U.S. customers paid an estimated $200 billion in higher services rates and tax breaks for fiber-optic networks they never received?

These days, that is NOT true of the telecoms, cellular providers, ISPs, Cable Companies, and other corporations trying to squeeze every last drop out of the internet. These poor excuses for companies have received billions in federal funding to build out fiber since before 1996. If a telecom bought out and/or is now servicing the area of a telecom that got funding, they should still be expected to provide the service to the people living there. Just like the financial companies, these companies, accepted funding, added fees (totaling more than $200 Billion) and started buying up the competition instead of building the infrastructure as they promised. Add on their customer-no-service-response for any error in the monthly billing, based on searches online seems to happen to new people every day.

In fact over the last 5 years the episodes of customer no service have risen to new highs. It is so bad that there is not a single corporation out there that honestly gives a darn about their customers. If they did the complaints on Rip Off

Re:you can buy Android apps from outside the marke

[Anonymous Coward]

Or they can give them away for free. Who pays for 100 lines of code? Seriously.

Re:You really do NOT need cellular anyway, thus fe

[Electrawn]

I take exception with this FUD [slashdot.org] that you appear, as many, to have bought into...: ...is probably much more secure than open wifi.

Whether your WiFi is open or not should not matter. In fact we should all keep our WiFi open and available for all as we have choice, between SSH, SFTP, VPNs, secure ID/passwords, VLANs and more; so there is no reason to worry about open WiFi anymore. I like many get tired of the industry scare tactics and FUD [slashdot.org].

I know there was a long socialist/libertarian rant attached. Some of it made sense, some of it looked like you need another beer. You should wise up and buy some T and VZ if you think they have an unfair advantage. You can even present that rant at the stockholders meeting...

Lets go deep down, as a technical discussion, as to why I would prefer cellular open open wifi on a mobile phone. Revisiting the OSI model, the encryption and therefore trust level of the connection as at level 2. Everything above layer 2 all the way to the application level is mostly secure. This also keeps the battery alive on my mobile device longer as there is dedicated hardware and engineering processes to making the thing secure.

Now say I had an a wireless device (Ipod touch) which would use open WIFI everywhere. I would then have to certify that any application used decent encryption in the Layer 6 and Layer 7 tiers. What a chore! Also, this extra effort chews battery.

So the conclusion, "get a secure browser, get a secure this and that" isn't relevant or very green to the mobile market.