Monday, April 18, 2011

Is "unauthorized" tethering illegal?


"Unauthorized" tethering remains a popular, albeit controversial practice in the United States. 


While several mobile phone carriers clearly consider "unauthorized" tethering illegal in their Terms of Service (TOS), many users beg to differ.
Is "unauthorized" tethering illegal?Tethering (also known as mobile hotspot service) is the use of a mobile phone to indirectly connect another device - such as a tablet or laptop - to the Internet. 


The connection between the phone and the connected device may be achieved via a USB cable, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. Multiple devices can also be connected to the Internet using the same phone.


Read the rest here.

25 comments:

  1. I tether my laptop all the time, I don't see why it's a big deal tbh.

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  2. Sounds like they are trying to squeeze more money out of their customers like always.

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  3. Agree with J.R. They're always trying to make more money.

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  4. Yeah the companies are probably just mad, who cares.

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  5. interesting....verizon sticks to their word that they will let any droid users do whatever they want, and are able to do with their phone, as it is theirs. As long as you pay for the plan, and the phone they dont care

    not that i agree that $30 extra a MONTH is reasonable, but they are at least fair about it.

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  6. I dont think its out of the question to use the internet you already pay for on your phone. Id rather not pay more for something I already have.

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  7. Its good technology, people are just greedy as always.

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  8. i have never heard of this, thats kind of cool, sucks its illegal though, but makes sense

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  9. They shouldn't have that much control. A data plan is a data plan :\

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  10. i hate when these companies try and get more money out of people, if you pay for data you should be able to use it

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  11. i had never thought about this before, thanks for the thought provoking post.

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  12. It's easy to hate on the companies, but you provoked some new perspectives for me... I appreciate the new interesting info.

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  13. I didn't even know about tethering until now.

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  14. ive been tethering my iphone for ages, the option to tether it was always there, maybe it came included in the cap

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  15. I've tethered my phone a bunch, never really considered it something that would be illegal

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  16. I got a tip for your laptop usage.. maybe you can blog about it ;)

    Well, using a laptop always gets hot right? REMOVE THE BATTERIE and keep it on charge.. it still works fine, and most people don't do this.. the batterie is only there if you have it OFF CHARGE.. makes sense right? :P thought I'd share it.

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  17. Its my data plan I purchased, and if its unlimited I'm gonna abuse it to use my lappy, which is much more useful.

    Right now I'm not on a data plan, but thats what I've done before

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  18. shouldn't be illegal since you are using your device to it's fullest potential. also catchas are on.

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  19. You should be able to do whatever you want to do with it since you bought it, you're not renting it or anything

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  20. Man, I was thinking about getting a smartphone primarily for this reason; tethering it to my laptop. If I can't do that though, I guess it'll be awhile before I get one of those.

    I'm fine with my regular flip phone. Doesn't even have a camera on it. I've had it for a bout a year and a half and it's completely fine. Text and talk, that's all I need.

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  21. I agree why have to pay for 2 services

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  22. does anyone know if you can tether an iphone 4 verizon?

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