Well, there was some rejoicing. Deutsche Telekom still wants out of the US market, so we can sort of expect to be treated like second-class citizens for a while until the inevitable occurs and either T-Mobile sinks entirely or someone ELSE buys them out.
They have said they wanted out, with 4 billion may change their mind.
They are not particularly profitable in the US because they are tied to the Euro mind-set of how mobile works. It doesn't work that way in North America, and never has. The area you need to cover is vast, the technologies in place are varied, and other than a Cutey in a Pink Dress, they don't have anything that is significantly different than any one of several small-fry carriers.
They need to change their mindset, realize they are in it for the long haul, and decide to make some money. As long as they keep chipping at the business, all the while expressing distaste for the market, and doing the minimal amount to expand their coverage they will never be profitable.
Perhaps they need to pair with a couple of the smaller regional carriers, or look to Ball Canada or Rogers for a partnership.
But continuing to moan about how unprofitable it is gets them nowhere.
Once again, Apple is using a law supposedly about innovation to ruin everybody else's chances in the marketplace. Their time on top is over, and legal protection for bogus patents is the only thing they have left.
Further, this was a horribly expensive "win" for Apple. They lost claims on 4 or 5 patents (these can never be re-asserted) and they won a tiny UI feature, that can easily be programmed around. Apple won't be able to enforce those patent claims against any other phone makers either.
The permanent loss of the patents far outweighs a UI quirk that can be avoided with a minor programming change which will be in place before the ruling takes affect. Its like going to war with 4 entire divisions, getting totally out trounced, but coming home with a mess-hall cook as a POW.
A few more wins like this and Apple will need a whole new patent portfolio.
More likely just a really good bullshitter with a few cut and paste paragraphs.
Anytime anyone wants to bet against technology bringing down prices while increasing performance and reducing size and energy consumption you can be pretty well assured they haven't passed their 20th birthday.
Software works well for the back-end of the radio, ie. detector. The front-end and antenna are another story.
But antenna's of approximately the right length are almost as good as specifically tuned antennas, and the technology for dealing with multi-wavelength radios is growing by leaps and bounds. See this summary of Fractal Antennas. (full article is paid), as well as this article
Developed over the last 20 years, fractal antennas have proven to be a fundamentally important breakthrough in antenna technology. This technology has allowed for antennas that are more powerful, versatile and compact. Because a fractal antenna uses fractal geometry and builds a complex pattern from the repetition of a simple shape, the inherent qualities of fractals enable the production of high-performance antennas that are typically 50% to 75% smaller than traditional ones. Because antenna performance is attained through the geometry of the conductor, rather than with the accumulation of separate components or separate elements that inevitably increase complexity and potential points of failure, fractal antennas offer better reliability and lower cost than traditional antennas.
.
So it would seem, that these antennas are destined to simply be "Printed" onto a substrate, perhaps the back cover of the phone, and segments enabled as needed. One antenna for all bands, just by using different segments to create the best pattern. This is bound to become dirt cheap to make.
When combined with a software defined radio, rather than the discrete band models we are used to, the flexibility to produce a true world phone is possibly closer than previously thought. As soon as the designers stop chasing multi-discrete-band radios, and just plan for a world of hundreds of band segments, the Software Radio will drive the unit lower than what we have today.
Also are they lumping all versions of Chrome together? All versions of Firefox together?
...
Yes, they are. It even says so in the article, but someone just dedicated to copypaste one really specific sentence from it to Slashdot. IE still has 50% market share, while Chrome has 25%.
No they are not lumping all versions of Chrome together.
The reason is that Chome auto-updates. Look at the graph, you can see the rise and fall of each chrome version. Hardly anyone is running old versions of chrome.
IE is starting to Auto-update too, but this did not happen on older releases, so many people are stalled out on older IE releases and will never update until they get a new machine.
See this statement in TFA:
But wait, there is a caveat to this: Chrome 15 beat IE 8, specifically, this one week at the end of November, with 23.6 percent of the worldwide market, compared to IE 8's at 23.5 percent. With all the versions of IE floating around, IE is still No. 1 in the world, but Chrome is right behind it.
The cherry picked statistic was version specific: Chrome 15 overtakes IE 8. And as such, its a pretty meaningless statement.
I've been paying them the pittance they ask every year since dirt. Its well worth it for the reliable service, and access to machines behind dynamic ips. Way cheaper than a static IP these days, and essential for a traveling machine. (I register two names per interface on traveling laptops, external IP, and internal IP).
Sounds like something twitter or facebook triggered. All it would take is one tweet to get this sort of thing started when census was underway.
That 15000 people thought of the same answer (I'm guessing it wasn't a check box on the form), it would have to have been croud-sourced at some level, and any random high school kid could have started it.
This is exactly what I thought when I saw pictures. The buses ran over the kid who was texting. Not one but two of them. How did he cause that?
Well from the article:
A 19-year-old pickup driver rear-ended a truck, and then was rear-ended by two school buses. Two people, including the pickup driver, were killed, and 38 were injured. Although there’s no evidence as to whether the pickup driver was texting at the moment of the crash, he had sent or received 11 texts in the previous 11 minutes.
You conveniently neglected to mention that the 19-year old 'kid' (he should be treated as an adult in my book) was irresponsible and caused the initial accident which then caused the pile up. Was it the bus drivers' fault for following too closely? You bet. But if that initial accident from the cell phone hadn't happened, that whole pile up probably wouldn't have happened either. People follow closely in rush hour traffic and it's bad driving. But maybe if that 'kid' had even put his break lights on, the buses would have also and the collision would have been just a rear ending. You concentrate on the car in front of you and if you are too close, you depend on them to give you some warning. If there's no warning, you both fail.
It didn't happen during impaired weather.
The bus driver would have easily been able to see the truck in front of the kid. If he had been as attentive as you suggest he would have seen the accident coming and laid on his horn. Brake lights wouldn't have helped, and you have no evidence that they didn't light up.
Anyone who concentrates on the car immediately in front of them, to the exclusion of all else is by definition a BAD driver. That's not defensive driving, its merely an excuse to follow too close.
Really? So all the passengers have to sit there in stony silence just because they are riding with someone going over 20mph? How many "are we there yet" questions do you want to answer?
Its not talking on the phone that is so dangerous (a slight distraction admittedly), its dialing or texting that takes your eyes off the road.
We often call ahead for reservations, and chat with friends while riding in the car, or car pools, or buses or commuter trains. Your solution is worse than the the knee jerk reaction of the NTSB.
This is exactly what I thought when I saw pictures. The buses ran over the kid who was texting. Not one but two of them. How did he cause that?
Now had the kid been on the phone (hand held or hands free) instead of texting even his accident would not have happened, because he would have had his eyes on the road.
Its my contention that forcing cell phone out of the hands (some states even forbid hands free phoning) represents a cure worse than the disease. Too many people fear a ticket for talking, and they compensate by texting from their lap (or below the level of window). Texting out of sight takes your eyes off the road. Talking on the phone, while still a distraction, allows your eyes to be on the road.
Are the materials that 3D printing is capable of using able to stand up to the tasks required of them?
It has been my understanding that most of the materials used are plastic, and not just any plastic will do, and metal parts (if even possible) are simply not the same as cast and machined parts, either in strength or precision.
Further this is done with powdered media, which will require advanced containment in a weightless environment, and a fair amount of power to operate the equipment. These machines aren't small enough yet to launch and install easily, so getting it there would be a problem.,
Further, the media plastic needs to be replaced often, sifted and cleaned/recycled.
In the final analysis, given the state of the art of 3d printing, I suspect it would be cheaper to launch each part as needed than it would be to launch a fresh batch of media to make each part.
Then there is the whole issue of the real value of the ISS, which has largely become a Russian playground with no real mission, and the service life was planned to end in 2015, recently extended to 2020. The Russians want to extend it to 2028, with nothing but a pie in the sky mission statement.
True they do tend to have built in infrastructure lockins. But this is falling by the wayside with penta-band handsets. A GSM Google Nexus purchased from Canada or the UK will work anywhere in Europe North America on a couple different carriers.
We are still stuck with two large CDMA carriers, and we will probably be stuck with them till LTE is nearly everywhere. Without those, it would be much easier for people to switch carriers at will, and prices would come down.
The sooner we abolish CDMA the better. Our use of CDMA was a historical accident, (the result of being one of the first deployments of cellular technology. As with all first deployments, you end up being stuck with things you'd rather not have. Europe, where cellular technology lagged the US by at least 8 years, is now years ahead, having never dug themselves into the CDMA hole in the first place.
Government predates the constitution by several centuries.
The reason mankind create governments around the world is to level the playing field, so that bandits (corporate or otherwise) do not rule the common man. (A failing of government has allowed these bandits refuge within government itself from time to time).
There are other reasons, such as build infrastructure, and protecting the populace. But by and large governments as an institution was designed to limit the "might makes right" mentality, you know, like establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty, that kind of thing.
Don't confuse the Method of government with the Reason for government. The reason was put in the first paragraph of one famous document, so that you wouldn't miss it. But it seems this plan failed, and miss it you did.
While I agree with everything you said, it still doesn't negate the GP's contention that we pay way too much for phones (handsets) in the US.
He just gave you an example of the EXACT same phone costing less in the UK. The Galaky S2 on T-Mobile costs around $179 up front and $79/mo. On top of that we pay for our calls (in minutes) for both outbound and inbound.
The price per month and amount of minutes takes into account the cost of networking a large country vs a small one. That might explain his $39/mo cost vs the US $79/mo cost. I say, MIGHT.
So why is the phone cost him ONLY $15 dollars up front and costs you and I $179, over 10 times as much?
Everyone who rushed out and bought the latest smartphones has a couple of these off-contract wifi capable phones laying around. Yank the sim, hoop up to your wifi and you are in business. Chances are most people know someone who has one of these they will sell you or give you, since they moved on to bigger faster better phones.
You can even make and receive phone calls with them via CSipSimple in the Google Market.
From our perspective, because we agree with what they're trying to accomplish. I don't agree with the means, though, which makes it very bad legislation.
Just because YOU do not agree with the means does not make it bad legislation.
We have government for precisely this reason, to restore some semblance of a balance of power between the individual consumer and the corporate giants who feel free to subject you to anything they think they can make you swallow. They are using our airwaves, and our TV sets, to say nothing about our eyeballs, they should follow our rules.
Your position seems to be you always have the right to turn it off, and any abuse you get is of your own choice. I'm not willing to make that choice. Why should I? What kind of freedom is that? The choice to take it or leave it? Screw that. They can operate by our rules, or operate not at all. Let them take it or leave it for a while. They've had their way for 30 years.
there's standards for loudness in most countries, but they're completely ignored by the broadcasters. they take an ad that's the correct standard volume and go ahead and turn it up anyway.
The difference is Americans bitch about this.
And by the way, these regulations are not completely ignored in all cases. The UK is pretty serious about fining offenders, and banning their adverts.
There are technical issues involved, such as measuring loudness (not everybody agrees on how this should be done) or when (whole program average, last 5 minute average, etc.). People have been asking for this for 30 years, and only now has there been any proposed standard for applying the volume limit. Previously there has been nothing but bickering about technical means as a smoke screen.
Forcing the few cable providers to enforce this will be far easier than forcing a thousand ad production companies to limit their volume. Pretty soon the cable providers (which in many cases are owners of or owned by broadcast networks, will impose their own noise levels on commercials submitted for airing.
But you can side load it, (or so the report goes).
Your Galaxy Nexus is not a native AT&T model (since there is none). So you might be seeing a block imposed by the fact the phone was imported from Canada or Europe or something, where Google Wallet is not available.
But ignoring that, the GSM models don't use the 700mhz band, don't support LTE (yet) and don't fall under the licensing provisions from that spectrum sale.
If your user agent is that of a desktop browser, you will be detected. And even if you use HTTPS for everything, a carrier's tether detector can still see your DNS requests.
DNS requests do not carry user agent info,
You have to assume that the carriers have time for deep packet inspection on every user. That really isn't the case. (Half of them are too clueless anyway).
You can tether a wifi only tablet to a cell phone and they can't tell a thing, as long as you don't fire up a carrier's teather app.
Second, you can adjust (or eliminate) the user agent string both on the phone and the laptop. Some Android browsers come with this feature built in.
Third, the carrier is not going to bother tracking you down as long as you don't start pulling tons of data and exceeding your normal usage by a wide margin. Unless you turn on the carriers tether app. That trips a switch, and Boom, its on your bill.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, there was some rejoicing. Deutsche Telekom still wants out of the US market, so we can sort of expect to be treated like second-class citizens for a while until the inevitable occurs and either T-Mobile sinks entirely or someone ELSE buys them out.
They have said they wanted out, with 4 billion may change their mind.
They are not particularly profitable in the US because they are tied to the Euro mind-set of how mobile works. It doesn't work that way in North America, and never has. The area you need to cover is vast, the technologies in place are varied, and other than a Cutey in a Pink Dress, they don't have anything that is significantly different than any one of several small-fry carriers.
They need to change their mindset, realize they are in it for the long haul, and decide to make some money.
As long as they keep chipping at the business, all the while expressing distaste for the market, and doing the minimal amount to expand their coverage they will never be profitable.
Perhaps they need to pair with a couple of the smaller regional carriers, or look to Ball Canada or Rogers for a partnership.
But continuing to moan about how unprofitable it is gets them nowhere.
Once again, Apple is using a law supposedly about innovation to ruin everybody else's chances in the marketplace. Their time on top is over, and legal protection for bogus patents is the only thing they have left.
Further, this was a horribly expensive "win" for Apple. They lost claims on 4 or 5 patents (these can never be re-asserted) and they won a tiny UI feature, that can easily be programmed around. Apple won't be able to enforce those patent claims against any other phone makers either.
The permanent loss of the patents far outweighs a UI quirk that can be avoided with a minor programming change which will be in place before the ruling takes affect. Its like going to war with 4 entire divisions, getting totally out trounced, but coming home with a mess-hall cook as a POW.
A few more wins like this and Apple will need a whole new patent portfolio.
More likely just a really good bullshitter with a few cut and paste paragraphs.
Anytime anyone wants to bet against technology bringing down prices while increasing performance and reducing size and energy consumption you can be pretty well assured they haven't passed their 20th birthday.
Software works well for the back-end of the radio, ie. detector. The front-end and antenna are another story.
But antenna's of approximately the right length are almost as good as specifically tuned antennas, and the technology for dealing with multi-wavelength radios is growing by leaps and bounds. See this summary of Fractal Antennas. (full article is paid), as well as this article
Developed over the last 20 years, fractal antennas have proven to be a fundamentally important breakthrough in antenna technology. This technology has allowed for antennas that are more powerful, versatile and compact. Because a fractal antenna uses fractal geometry and builds a complex pattern from the repetition of a simple shape, the inherent qualities of fractals enable the production of high-performance antennas that are typically 50% to 75% smaller than traditional ones. Because antenna performance is attained through the geometry of the conductor, rather than with the accumulation of separate components or separate elements that inevitably increase complexity and potential points of failure, fractal antennas offer better reliability and lower cost than traditional antennas.
.
So it would seem, that these antennas are destined to simply be "Printed" onto a substrate, perhaps the back cover of the phone, and segments enabled as needed. One antenna for all bands, just by using different segments to create the best pattern. This is bound to become dirt cheap to make.
When combined with a software defined radio, rather than the discrete band models we are used to, the flexibility to produce a true world phone is possibly closer than previously thought. As soon as the designers stop chasing multi-discrete-band radios, and just plan for a world of hundreds of band segments, the Software Radio will drive the unit lower than what we have today.
Also are they lumping all versions of Chrome together? All versions of Firefox together?
...
Yes, they are. It even says so in the article, but someone just dedicated to copypaste one really specific sentence from it to Slashdot. IE still has 50% market share, while Chrome has 25%.
No they are not lumping all versions of Chrome together.
The reason is that Chome auto-updates. Look at the graph, you can see the rise and fall of each chrome version.
Hardly anyone is running old versions of chrome.
IE is starting to Auto-update too, but this did not happen on older releases, so many people are stalled out on older IE releases and will never update until they get a new machine.
See this statement in TFA:
But wait, there is a caveat to this: Chrome 15 beat IE 8, specifically, this one week at the end of November, with 23.6 percent of the worldwide market, compared to IE 8's at 23.5 percent. With all the versions of IE floating around, IE is still No. 1 in the world, but Chrome is right behind it.
The cherry picked statistic was version specific: Chrome 15 overtakes IE 8. And as such, its a pretty meaningless statement.
Exactly. Spend a few bucks people.
I've been paying them the pittance they ask every year since dirt. Its well worth it for the reliable service, and
access to machines behind dynamic ips. Way cheaper than a static IP these days, and essential for a
traveling machine. (I register two names per interface on traveling laptops, external IP, and internal IP).
Sounds like something twitter or facebook triggered. All it would take is one tweet to get this sort of thing started when census was underway.
That 15000 people thought of the same answer (I'm guessing it wasn't a check box on the form), it would have to have been croud-sourced at some level, and any random high school kid could have started it.
Bus driver slams into pickup truck that had rear ended a semi.
What part of that is hard for you to visualize?
Could you please tell me how the bus driver should have any trouble seeing over a pickup?
This is exactly what I thought when I saw pictures. The buses ran over the kid who was texting. Not one but two of them.
How did he cause that?
Well from the article:
A 19-year-old pickup driver rear-ended a truck, and then was rear-ended by two school buses. Two people, including the pickup driver, were killed, and 38 were injured. Although there’s no evidence as to whether the pickup driver was texting at the moment of the crash, he had sent or received 11 texts in the previous 11 minutes.
You conveniently neglected to mention that the 19-year old 'kid' (he should be treated as an adult in my book) was irresponsible and caused the initial accident which then caused the pile up. Was it the bus drivers' fault for following too closely? You bet. But if that initial accident from the cell phone hadn't happened, that whole pile up probably wouldn't have happened either. People follow closely in rush hour traffic and it's bad driving. But maybe if that 'kid' had even put his break lights on, the buses would have also and the collision would have been just a rear ending. You concentrate on the car in front of you and if you are too close, you depend on them to give you some warning. If there's no warning, you both fail.
It didn't happen during impaired weather.
The bus driver would have easily been able to see the truck in front of the kid. If he had been as attentive as you suggest he would have seen the accident coming and laid on his horn. Brake lights wouldn't have helped, and you have no evidence that they didn't light up.
Anyone who concentrates on the car immediately in front of them, to the exclusion of all else is by definition a BAD driver.
That's not defensive driving, its merely an excuse to follow too close.
Really? So all the passengers have to sit there in stony silence just because they are riding with someone going over 20mph?
How many "are we there yet" questions do you want to answer?
Its not talking on the phone that is so dangerous (a slight distraction admittedly), its dialing or texting that takes your eyes off the road.
We often call ahead for reservations, and chat with friends while riding in the car, or car pools, or buses or commuter trains. Your solution is worse than the the knee jerk reaction of the NTSB.
I just wish Taxi drivers could let go of their cell phones and start acting as professional as they used to be.
Name a time when taxi drivers were ever professionals!! These guys usually drive cabs because they can't hold down any other job.
This is exactly what I thought when I saw pictures. The buses ran over the kid who was texting. Not one but two of them.
How did he cause that?
Now had the kid been on the phone (hand held or hands free) instead of texting even his accident would not have happened,
because he would have had his eyes on the road.
Its my contention that forcing cell phone out of the hands (some states even forbid hands free phoning) represents a cure
worse than the disease. Too many people fear a ticket for talking, and they compensate by texting from their lap (or below
the level of window). Texting out of sight takes your eyes off the road. Talking on the phone, while still a distraction, allows
your eyes to be on the road.
Are the materials that 3D printing is capable of using able to stand up to the tasks required of them?
It has been my understanding that most of the materials used are plastic, and not just any plastic will do, and
metal parts (if even possible) are simply not the same as cast and machined parts, either in strength or
precision.
Further this is done with powdered media, which will require advanced containment in a weightless environment, and a fair amount of power to operate the equipment. These machines aren't small enough yet to launch and install easily, so getting it there would be a problem.,
Further, the media plastic needs to be replaced often, sifted and cleaned/recycled.
In the final analysis, given the state of the art of 3d printing, I suspect it would be cheaper to launch each part as needed than it would be to launch a fresh batch of media to make each part.
Then there is the whole issue of the real value of the ISS, which has largely become a Russian playground with
no real mission, and the service life was planned to end in 2015, recently extended to 2020. The Russians want
to extend it to 2028, with nothing but a pie in the sky mission statement.
True they do tend to have built in infrastructure lockins. But this is falling by the wayside with penta-band handsets.
A GSM Google Nexus purchased from Canada or the UK will work anywhere in Europe North America on a couple different carriers.
We are still stuck with two large CDMA carriers, and we will probably be stuck with them till LTE is nearly everywhere. Without those, it would be much easier for people to switch carriers at will, and prices would come down.
The sooner we abolish CDMA the better. Our use of CDMA was a historical accident, (the result of being one of the first deployments of cellular technology. As with all first deployments, you end up being stuck with things you'd rather not have. Europe, where cellular technology lagged the US by at least 8 years, is now years ahead, having never dug themselves into the CDMA hole in the first place.
Constitution?
Government predates the constitution by several centuries.
The reason mankind create governments around the world is to level the playing field, so that bandits (corporate or otherwise) do not rule the common man. (A failing of government has allowed these bandits refuge within government itself from time to time).
There are other reasons, such as build infrastructure, and protecting the populace. But by and large governments as an institution was designed to limit the "might makes right" mentality, you know, like establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty, that kind of thing.
Don't confuse the Method of government with the Reason for government. The reason was put in the first paragraph of one famous document, so that you wouldn't miss it. But it seems this plan failed, and miss it you did.
While I agree with everything you said, it still doesn't negate the GP's contention that we pay way too much for phones (handsets) in the US.
He just gave you an example of the EXACT same phone costing less in the UK. The Galaky S2 on T-Mobile costs around $179 up front and $79/mo. On top of that we pay for our calls (in minutes) for both outbound and inbound.
The price per month and amount of minutes takes into account the cost of networking a large country vs a small one. That might explain his $39/mo cost vs the US $79/mo cost. I say, MIGHT.
So why is the phone cost him ONLY $15 dollars up front and costs you and I $179, over 10 times as much?
Exactly. These are easy to come by these days.
Everyone who rushed out and bought the latest smartphones has a couple of these off-contract wifi capable phones
laying around. Yank the sim, hoop up to your wifi and you are in business. Chances are most people know someone who has one of these they will sell you or give you, since they moved on to bigger faster better phones.
You can even make and receive phone calls with them via CSipSimple in the Google Market.
Already available if you have a soldering iron.
http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-add-led-lights-avoid-speed-detection-while-driving-222857/
Not always.
Some modern cell phones have fantastic low light capability simply because they know that LED Camera flashes are so weak.
But you can counter the good low light cameras with an LED hat: http://hacknmod.com/hack/blind-cameras-with-an-infrared-led-hat/
From our perspective, because we agree with what they're trying to accomplish. I don't agree with the means, though, which makes it very bad legislation.
Just because YOU do not agree with the means does not make it bad legislation.
We have government for precisely this reason, to restore some semblance of a balance of power between the individual consumer and the corporate giants who feel free to subject you to anything they think they can make you swallow. They are using our airwaves, and our TV sets, to say nothing about our eyeballs, they should follow our rules.
Your position seems to be you always have the right to turn it off, and any abuse you get is of your own choice. I'm not willing to make that choice. Why should I? What kind of freedom is that? The choice to take it or leave it? Screw that. They can operate by our rules, or operate not at all. Let them take it or leave it for a while. They've had their way for 30 years.
Why should I?
How?
By using technical means. Jeeze, this technology is already commercially available and built into many TV sets. Its not rocket science.
there's standards for loudness in most countries, but they're completely ignored by the broadcasters. they take an ad that's the correct standard volume and go ahead and turn it up anyway.
The difference is Americans bitch about this.
And by the way, these regulations are not completely ignored in all cases. The UK is pretty serious about fining offenders, and banning their adverts.
There are technical issues involved, such as measuring loudness (not everybody agrees on how this should be done) or when (whole program average, last 5 minute average, etc.). People have been asking for this for 30 years, and only now has there been any proposed standard for applying the volume limit. Previously there has been nothing but bickering about technical means as a smoke screen.
Forcing the few cable providers to enforce this will be far easier than forcing a thousand ad production companies to limit their volume.
Pretty soon the cable providers (which in many cases are owners of or owned by broadcast networks, will impose their own noise levels on commercials submitted for airing.
I doubt it will be ignored.
But you can side load it, (or so the report goes).
Your Galaxy Nexus is not a native AT&T model (since there is none). So you might be seeing a block imposed by the fact the phone was imported from Canada or Europe or something, where Google Wallet is not available.
But ignoring that, the GSM models don't use the 700mhz band, don't support LTE (yet) and don't fall under the licensing provisions from that spectrum sale.
If your user agent is that of a desktop browser, you will be detected. And even if you use HTTPS for everything, a carrier's tether detector can still see your DNS requests.
DNS requests do not carry user agent info,
You have to assume that the carriers have time for deep packet inspection on every user. That really isn't the case. (Half of them are too clueless anyway).
You can tether a wifi only tablet to a cell phone and they can't tell a thing, as long as you don't fire up a carrier's teather app.
Second, you can adjust (or eliminate) the user agent string both on the phone and the laptop. Some Android browsers come with this feature built in.
Third, the carrier is not going to bother tracking you down as long as you don't start pulling tons of data and exceeding your normal usage by a wide margin. Unless you turn on the carriers tether app. That trips a switch, and Boom, its on your bill.