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Let my Wi-Fi go: FCC rules Verizon can't charge for Wi-Fi tethering

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Re: Let my Wi-Fi go: FCC rules Verizon can't charge for Wi-Fi tethering

#111

Post by SonicSoul »

dangrossman wrote: post #90
beambot wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't Sprint charge for tethering too? (I currently have a Sprint plan. I'm pretty sure that it's unlimited data, but they don't allow tethering without paying extra fees or rooting your device.)

Yes, it's $29.99/month to enable the Sprint Hotspot. They disable the built-in tethering in Android and hide most tethering apps from the Play store. That said, you can tether over USB or bluetooth with PdaNet or FoxFi without paying any fees or rooting the phone.

blue tooth tethering sucks. it keeps disconnecting and i have to go through like a 8 step process to get it working again. FoxFi worked beautifully until i installed an update and it was blocked. now FoxFi is working on getting around ICS 4.0.4 on sprint. WTF is sprint thinking? why do they think people choose android over iphone? it's supposed to be more open. im so tired of this bullshit cat and mouse game.

Re: Let my Wi-Fi go: FCC rules Verizon can't charge for Wi-Fi tethering

#112

Post by dangrossman »

SonicSoul wrote: post #111
dangrossman wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's $29.99/month to enable the Sprint Hotspot. They disable the built-in tethering in Android and hide most tethering apps from the Play store. That said, you can tether over USB or bluetooth with PdaNet or FoxFi without paying any fees or rooting the phone.

blue tooth tethering sucks. it keeps disconnecting and i have to go through like a 8 step process to get it working again. FoxFi worked beautifully until i installed an update and it was blocked. now FoxFi is working on getting around ICS 4.0.4 on sprint. WTF is sprint thinking? why do they think people choose android over iphone? it's supposed to be more open. im so tired of this bullshit cat and mouse game.

I don't know what's wrong with your phone, but I have no such issues. Bluetooth is perfectly reliable and takes one click to connect/disconnect.

Re: Let my Wi-Fi go: FCC rules Verizon can't charge for Wi-Fi tethering

#113

Post by pooriaazimi »

tedunangst wrote: post #96
Steko wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't Sprint also throttle you over a certain GB limit? I have a hard time deciding if I want unlimited or not. I certainly don't need unlimited. I know there are people who use 50-100+ GB a month but I don't come anywhere near that and don't want to subsidize those people. I'm perfectly fine with a per GB charge or a decent sized base plan and a reasonable per GB overage. OTOH those caps need to grow every year be…

I had a Sprint 4G hotspot with unlimited data. Until one month they decided to change my plan to 5GB with big overage charges. They "announced" this change by slipping a notice in the PDF ebills I never once downloaded. After $200 in overage charges (which I disputed for hours, only to be repeatedly told I was given "valid" notice) I cancelled the service. Fuck Sprint. I should mention this occurred right at the same…

:) The sad part is they got a "free" $200 from you. I don't think they mind losing you as a customer!

Re: Let my Wi-Fi go: FCC rules Verizon can't charge for Wi-Fi tethering

#114

Post by nilsbunger »

fpgeek wrote: post #107
nilsbunger wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do it to segment their customers. A lot of us startups do it too when we offer one plan for $9 per month, another for $19 per month. The delta isn't necessarily because our costs are different, but rather because the value to the consumer is different. You could argue that cellular networks should only be allowed to be dumb pipes because they are a government-granted monopoly (of spectrum). That would put them i…

> Would they still subsidize phones? Is subsidizing phones actually a good idea? To me, it is one features of the US mobile phone market that looks particularly unhealthy. For instance, the subsidy is biggest reason cellular networks can start messing around with what you can and can't run on your phone in the first place. Otherwise, if you didn't like how your carrier crippled your phone, you'd wouldn't buy your pho…

I agree it's probably not a good thing to have subsidies "baked in" by the carriers.

Re: Let my Wi-Fi go: FCC rules Verizon can't charge for Wi-Fi tethering

#115

Post by nilsbunger »

HotKFreshSwag wrote: post #91
nilsbunger wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do it to segment their customers. A lot of us startups do it too when we offer one plan for $9 per month, another for $19 per month. The delta isn't necessarily because our costs are different, but rather because the value to the consumer is different. You could argue that cellular networks should only be allowed to be dumb pipes because they are a government-granted monopoly (of spectrum). That would put them i…

On the other hand high bandwidth prices slow down adoption, usage and evolution for all other industries which uses these telecom services. The rest of the economy is held back by these prices. I would argue that the benefits of low bandwidth prices for the rest of the economy outweighs the benefits from the current telecom profits.

How much cheaper would it actually be?

Re: Let my Wi-Fi go: FCC rules Verizon can't charge for Wi-Fi tethering

#116

Post by MichaelApproved »

pasbesoin wrote: post #100
thetabyte wrote: post #51

While this is wondeful, ZDNet misses something huge picked up on Ars. "The FCC concedes that Verizon may charge $20 per month for customers who retain grandfathered unlimited data plans." http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/07/tethering-apps-must-b... So I won't be benefitting from this. The most ridiculous, bullshit part of all of this is that unlimited plans aren't unlimited anyway . They have "Fair Access Policy"…

Neither did they require Verizon to refund collected fees. Since this was apparently a clear violation of the licensing agreement (i.e. it was never "correct" or "permitted" under that agreement), I'd argue the FCC should have made them make the affected consumers whole. Now that might have sent a significant message with respect to ending this kind of bullshit, and to deliberately -- I'd argue, maliciously -- pushin…

"Neither did they require Verizon to refund collected fees.[...] Now that might have sent a significant message with respect to ending this kind of bullshit, and to deliberately -- I'd argue, maliciously -- pushing the limits of what they can get away with."

Your suggestion doesn't go far enough. If I were Verizon playing with these rules, I'd still try to collect fees. If were caught, I'd refund those fees and go about my business. No harm, no foul.

My point is that it's not really a penalty to just refund the money you took illegally. There must be punitive damages to make the risk of breaking the law more than just a profit or break even proposition. It should be a profit or lose more money than the risk is worth proposition for companies.

Re: Let my Wi-Fi go: FCC rules Verizon can't charge for Wi-Fi tethering

#117

Post by yuhong »

nl wrote: post #98
huxley wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes they certainly did: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/08/google-verizon-netneut...

You'll note that document is divided into Good, Interesting, Troubling and Fail sections. It certainly is less than ideal, but I guess that is true of most compromises.

Yea, the biggest problem is whether FCC had the authority to impose these rules or does it have to go through Congress? And yea it is pretty much separate.

Re: Let my Wi-Fi go: FCC rules Verizon can't charge for Wi-Fi tethering

#118

Post by ipsin »

thetabyte wrote: post #109
pasbesoin wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither did they require Verizon to refund collected fees. Since this was apparently a clear violation of the licensing agreement (i.e. it was never "correct" or "permitted" under that agreement), I'd argue the FCC should have made them make the affected consumers whole. Now that might have sent a significant message with respect to ending this kind of bullshit, and to deliberately -- I'd argue, maliciously -- pushin…

This is an excellent point, and a possible opportunity for class action lawsuit?

Sorry, class action lawsuits don't exist any more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Mobility_v._Concepcion

(That is, if your contract includes an arbitration clause)

Re: Let my Wi-Fi go: FCC rules Verizon can't charge for Wi-Fi tethering

#119

Post by robomartin »

vacri wrote: post #62
robomartin wrote: post #43

One small step for man... The next would be to somehow abolish the per-device data fee structure. We have seven iOS devices. Only three are actively online. Even at that, when at home, office or near wifi cellular data does not get used much if a all. Still, we have to pay 3x the cellular data monthly fee, which is insanity. I do understand the technical and business issues here, but this cuts both ways: I know that…

Do you also complain that your cable TV isn't used to capacity because you're not watching all channels 24 hours a day? It seems so peculiar that people complain that they're not using their internet account to saturation when they don't make the same complaint about other things.

I am having trouble finding where in my post I said anything about using a service to saturation. Not that the cable TV analogy holds up.

If you are using an iOS device to download a 100MB game app over WiFi via AT&T DSL --that you pay for-- while, at the same time paying for a cellular data plan, AT&T is making making more money on you because their cellular data bandwidth is not being utilized by they still charge you.

I would venture to say that most iOS devices spend the bulk of their time within WiFi zones (AT&T or not). This means that a portion of what AT&T charges for cellular data is never actually used and that is pure profit for them.

As I said in my post: I don't know what the right solution is, but the current setup is starting to smell pretty bad.

If the above example doesn't do it for you, think about this. Twenty people working at a company. The company pays (maybe through AT&T) for Internet access and provides WiFi to all employees. Every single one of them has a personal iPhone. Every single one of them pays for a cellular data plan. And, while at work, every single one of them is using the WiFi access point for the bulk of the data traffic on their devices. AT&T is making a nice profit on data bandwidth they never have to deliver over the cellular network.

Later on, those same people go home and are likely to transfer data over their own (paid) DSL connection rather than use cellular data. Again, double charging by the telcos, if you will.

Once you do the math past a single iPhone the effect starts to become obvious very quickly.

Maybe what I am saying is that if I am paying AT&T for cellular data as well as DSL I should receive a credit on my cellular data plan for the data moved over DSL as opposed to the cell network. Again, I don't know the first thing about their business equation, so I'll be the first one to admit that this proposal could be beyond ridiculous for a hundred and one reasons.

Re: Let my Wi-Fi go: FCC rules Verizon can't charge for Wi-Fi tethering

#120

Post by javert »

First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.
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