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AT&T Cracking Down On Unofficial iPhone Tethering

Posted by Soulskill on from the convenience-charge-for-different-bits dept.

An anonymous reader writes "AT&T is sending warning notifications to jailbroken iPhone users who use unofficial tethering methods like MyWi and PDANet. 'Customers are being notified that their service plans need updating to subscribe to a tethering plan, and that they will be automatically subscribed to a DataPro 4GB package that costs an additional $45 per month if they continue to tether.'"

4 of 513 comments (clear)

  1. Detection by mehrotra.akash · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How do they detect if the users are tethering??

    1. Re:Detection by DanTheManMS · · Score: 3, Interesting

      How do they detect if the users are tethering??

      From what I've read, it seems like they're really just looking for people who use up tons of data per month, on the suspicion that they're tethering. I've already heard a few stories of people calling them up, saying "I stream Pandora all day so why am I being charged extra for that?" and being let off the hook.

  2. Hmmmm... by Drakkenmensch · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Isn't it against regulation to force you into an added-charge service unless you opt out?

  3. Re:USA #1 by Toe,+The · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There is one simple little reason: Americans appear to be willing to pay for it.

    Most US cell phones are free or almost free. The fact that you're getting a free phone in exchange for paying thousands of dollars over two years for service seems to be lost on most consumers here.

    Americans also regularly pay over $100 per month for cable TV... and there are ads on almost every channel (often taking up a full third of every hour of programming!), not to mention pay-per-view channels.

    Indeed, how do Americans fall for this stuff while people in other nations seem to be able to get better deals? Are we really just that dumb?