VZW- Phone tethering...AMAZING

[knowledgegranted]

My father recently purchased a droid 2 and has the data plan; as you may know the Droid 2 can also be a wifi hub. I'm currently using a macbook and I'm at a family yardsale (which hundreds of people are comming to for some odd reasn, must be the craigslist ad).

So me being me, I wanted to try it out. I connected instantly and found myself amazed at the speed. Not a single webpage has taken over 2-3 seconds if that. Engadget loads instantly, and TBCS as well.


I'm very happy with the results.

[dr.walrus]

I can confirm that this update to Android is amazing. This particular feature was of great help to some friends who live round the corner who just moved in and had no internet!

It is also my dad's reason for buying a desire over an iphone 3gs. Win!

[Konrad]

Carriers used to somehow force extra charges onto people for tethering, just a few years ago. Has this changed?

[dr.walrus]

Carriers used to somehow force extra charges onto people for tethering, just a few years ago. Has this changed?

Mine was supposed to, but I did it for a month and no charges.

How they would detect it is beyond me

[SgtM]

No. It's just easier to get around on a droid.

[knowledgegranted]

Update: Phone is in the car charging, and I'm still connected with blazing speeds and it's approximately 150 feet away. Simply amazing.


Nope, no extra contracts or charges anymore.

[Mark_Hardware]

When using your phone for tethering, most companies have a 5 Gb cap. Actually, most carriers have a 5 Gb cap on their data plans, period. (Even "unlimited" plans. Wth.) I'm not sure about VZW, but Sprint has unlimited 4G, but 5 Gig limit on 3G data. Go figure.

[Drum Thumper]

Unless Verizon changed very recently, the 5 gig cap is still in place.

[Snowman]

Not for droids i hit 11 gb last month on phone alone with tethering it was above that, with the constant connection to google I dont know how long they can maintain that cap.

[Konrad]

The cap is entirely arbitrary, they can maintain it indefinitely.

None of the major carriers will offer better pricing caps (ie, reduce their income) until they see that they're losing revenue, likely to their competitors. They are providing a service which can only accomodate a fixed bandwidth for digital signals. They'll either install more/better hardware or use arbitrary pricing tiers to assess a premium from the heaviest data users, whichever makes more financial sense within each region.

[x88x]

Carriers used to somehow force extra charges onto people for tethering, just a few years ago. Has this changed?

Some do, some don't. I know when I was looking for a new carrier I found out AT&T charges something like $25 more/mo if you tell them you're gonna be tethering it...but that's really what it boils down to with tethering, is if you actually tell them.

[Konrad]

Same idea as my local cable company (Shaw) trying to charge you $10/month for each extra TV you hook up. There's really no way they can know how many TVs you're running without you volunteering the info, at least not conclusively enough to proceed legally. Who would volunteer to pay more?