AT&T has begun to send customers on the carriers older unlimited data plans with jailbroken/rooted devices that tether on the plans text messages stating that if customers don’t cease the activity, they will be forced off of the unlimited plans onto the newer DataPro plans with the 4GB tethering allowance with no way to recover the previous plans.
This also follows the carrier’s previous announcement for those on the older smartphone unlimited plans that AT&T would begin to throttle those customers that the carrier considers within the 5% of the customer base that uses more data than the rest of the customer base combined beginning in October, though the carrier has yet to confirm what criteria it is using to arrive at such percentages and number of customers affected by the forthcoming changes in a bid to protect its network integrity. A statement from AT&T follows at the Continue Reading link
Earlier this year, we began sending letters, emails, and text messages to a small number of smartphone customers who use their devices for tethering but aren’t on our required tethering plan. Our goal here is fairness for all of our customers. (This impacts a only small percentage of our smartphone customer base.)
The letters outline three choices:
1) Stop tethering and keep their current plan (including grandfathered unlimited plan)
2) Proactively call AT&T or visit our stores and move to the required tethering plan
3) Do nothing and we’ll go ahead and add the tethering plan on their behalf — after the dated noted in their customer notification
AT&T first began sending such messages to customers earlier this year, though those were meant as a friendly warning to let jailbroken tethering users known that the carrier is still able to figure out what type of activity the phone is doing regardless of being jailbroken/rooted, with many taking the warning at face value while others continued the activity. This most recent wave of warnings is now being followed up by potentially financially stiff action from the carrier and is sending the message that it will do whatever it takes to make sure its customers abide by its rules, for better or worse.
I hope it makes my experience better.
Just leave att and go to sprint. If you still want an iphone then go with verizon. Att is getting worse by the hour. People who get this letter or text should contact the fcc and bbb and if att doesn’t back down then cancel the contract and switch carriers. If people don’t do anything then its going to get worse and even verizon is going to go this route once they see all att customers settling for this crap.
AT&T, the death of unlimited. They killed the Internet like we saw it. I feel sorry for tmobile customers having to put up with this crap soon.
I have no problems with carriers forcing customers on UNLIMITED plans to pay for tethering, but to force people on non unlimited plans to pay extra is just insane.
Chuck, if you have no problem with that, then perhaps you’ll have no problem when AT&T decides to stop you from visiting certain web sites that they don’t like… such as oh, say, Netflix.
If a smartphone is a pocket computer, and can do everything a desktop can (which, it can now essentially), then why should AT&T tell me if I am permitted to pull up a web page in one version of Safari (on the iPhone) but not another (on the Mac or PC)?
I find no legal merit in their blocking of tethering. None. We’ll keep saying that as long as AT&T keeps saying otherwise.
Chris,
Here’s the thing. AT&T never said they allowed tethering. It was always an extra cost. People signing up for service who were interesting in tethering no doubt knew this before they agreed to the contract. Just because AT&T was allowing it doesn’t change the fact it wasn’t allowed all along. Sure it sucks that they are finally enforcing their own rules, but its well within their rights IMO.
I get that for a lot of people, they weren’t abusing the network and for them the situation really sucks, but blame the small percentage of users who abuse it for forcing AT&T’s hand.
I am pretty sure all carriers want you to pay extra for tethering, so its not like AT&T is doing anything different here. Its just they are one of the few who actually enforce the policy now. I dunno, but I dont feel any sympathy for people who tether. Just pay the extra fee for the service or go somewhere else. Seems pretty cut and dry to me.
chuck i pay every month for unlimited data…. so why shouldnt i be able to use it??? your dumb! 😉
Verizon’s doing it too now. Rooted and jailbroken phones tethering with unauthorized apps are being redirected to their tethering sign-up page, according to some blogs and journal articles I was reading just this morning.
Everybody says “go to Sprint”. ROFL. Sprint charges $30/mo for tethering, kiddies. If they aren’t implementing Deep Packet Inspection to determine the destination of the packet or the NAI/APN gateways the packets pass through like VZW and AT&T are now doing, just how long will it be before they start? That tethering cash cow is just too big a pile to leave sitting on the table.
Chuck, in our view, the Internet is the Internet. It is an open pipe that nobody has a right to filter through, and tell you what you can and cannot do on it… so long as it is permitted by state law.
The mere notion that any carrier should have to review and permit what I can and cannot do with my Internet connection, especially when a web page in one version of Safari is just the same as another, is patently unacceptable.
And, we’ll keep fighting for the little guy to make sure that opinion wins the day. As usual, our only bias is to the consumer.
Again, AT&T has never changed its policy. Its only started to actually enforce its policy. If I go to a private country club, and there is a sign with a list of specific rules, and I break those rules, they have every right to throw me out.
I am not saying I would not like to see AT&T allow tethering for free. I do agree that data is data and you should be able to use it any way you can legally. That is not what this is about. Its about a rule that AT&T has that customers are knowingly violating. How is AT&T enforcing its rules somehow evil? They are a business. If it makes business sense to do this, then why wouldn’t they?
Is it customer friendly? To some, hell no. To others, they don’t care. I would imagine this is only affecting a very small, geeky subset of customers. The kind of people who come on web sites about technology and complain. So, while it seems like its some large group of people who are upset, I don’t think that group represents the customer base as a whole.
Maybe its just me. When I go to a business and do not like what they have to offer or feel disrespected in anyway, I go elsewhere. I vote with my wallet and leave. I don’t make some big stink or fuss over it. I find that doing so is a huge waste of time and energy.
Chuck apparently doesn’t know what net neutrality is.
AT&T has no right to tell you how you can or can’t use your data. Their only right is to tell you how much you can use. And they don’t even have that right if you pay for unlimited data.
You want to know why AT&T just barely started enforcing this rule? Because it was illegal for them to enforce it up until recently.
When you let the carriers write the net neutrality rules, this is what you get. Another product of our bought and paid for government.
Also, Chuck, if this is affecting such a small minority of people, then AT&T wouldn’t be hurt if they just left well enough alone.
And you can’t just take your business elsewhere when there are only 2 GSM carriers and AT&T is already in the process of buying their only GSM competition.
If you mean Verizon, they are hand in hand with AT&T on every policy change. When one does something, the other follows. That’s why Verizon implemented this same policy a couple days later. And even if they hadn’t, it’s not cost effective to pay your ETF, hope to get a return on your expensive smartphone, and buy another smartphone on another carrier. My heart goes out to anyone that actually did that only to have Verizon pull the same crap a couple days later.
Deep Packet Inspection should be illegal, and net neutrality should be required and enforced. But when you let corporations run the country, this is what you get. Take your business elsewhere, and then the big corporation will buy them too.
All i can say is yes verizon charges a little more for their plans and such
But I love the coverage the reliability of the network and they have over 120 4g cities now.
And verizon has the most 3g and always had
So of course they are going to charge a little more.
But verizon blows att out of the water. even when the merger happens, its still gonna be att and tmobile and 2g in most rural areas.
I have had all the carriers and while verizon is the most expensive, it is the most reliable network and the fastest on 4g and in two years the hole us will have 4g att hasnt even barely started