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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?'"
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.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
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.
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.
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?
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..
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.
Democrat delenda est
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.
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.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
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.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
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.
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?
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.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
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.
They're using their grammar skills there.
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.
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.
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.
'Every story, if continued long enough, ends in death.' --Ernest Hemingway
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.
Quoth Ars Technica's article on this same thing (which was updated well before Slashdot's was posted):
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).
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...
What is...?
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.
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
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.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
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.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
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.
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).
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.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
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'.
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.
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.
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.
Let's assume for the moment that you're right.
Explain the cost of SMS.
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.
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.
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.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
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)
Course thats nothing when you compare it to what the dingos do...
They eat your babies?