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...
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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...