They only have 5000mb tethering plans now for anything that I could find including the cards/usb adapters. I’m not paying $30 MORE dollars a month just to use my laptop once a month for a half hour to an hour… and I’m SURELY not trading in my 6mbit DSL for <1mbit wireless (unless ATT pushes another one of my buttons, and at that time I'll ditch them for cable and Verizon wireless).

Someone there needs to realize what they’re doing, and whats to loose. Wrong moves at this point won’t just sink a good cell phone company, but a land line company as well.

GOD himself feared the mafia run Ma-Bell, which is now resurected as The New Franken-Bell. Pray for us!

I think that ATT should just require us all to bring in our Tax forms and use that information to determine how much they can take us for. for the people at ATT, I would like to point a few things out: You can shear a sheep many times, but skin it only once. Corporate responsibility has to come into play at some point and so does the bottom line. Like every new technological innovation, cell phones, pda’s, smartphones, and yes, even the IPHONE, will become commonplace within a few short years. And then, your shareholders are going to lose a lot of money. After that, maybe you’ll listen to the consumer instead of your efficiency experts… Personally I think I speak for all of us when I say that your data plans are ridiculously overpriced. As for me? I’m going to keep using my laptop at coffee shops, or wherever I can pick up free wifi instead of paying $70 per month for your slow tethering plan. I would try to bargain with you and offer to pay $30 per month, but why would I do that when I could just get broadband cable internet for the same price? Wise up guys… You’re about to lose a lot of money because there are a lot of people who feel exactly like I do. Piss me off enough, and I’ll make the switch to a service provider who has even less coverage and higher costs. And I’d do that just to spite you. Listen to your customers… And dont ever ask me to take one of those stupid survey’s again to let you know how you’re doing. Trust me…. You dont want to know.

i think that if you pay for unlimited data, then you should be able to use data, no matter how you use it. i think that att two different plans (one for the phone, one for the “laptop”) is just a bunch of B.S. so they can make more money. they think they can do this because the average consumer will buy the ~$20/mo plan, and the business consumer will buy the ~$60/mo plan.

and this is total B.S. and monopolistic. like they need the money anyway.

if they wanted more people paying for data and therefore more money coming in, then they should just offer an “unlimited data” plan. period. not two. not three. but one.

data is data. who cares how you want to use it. if you want to tether, then so be it.

why won’t att start acting like the rest of the world’s carriers and do this.

then a whole lot more more people would test it out, use it, bring in more $$$ for att, and then they can upgrade their towers and services with the increased revenue.

i have many business clients that will not pay ~$60/mo for just a laptop connect plan. so they do not use “mobile data” at all. att should make the unlimited data plan something like ~$30/mo, and allow these customers to do as they wished.

think of all the money att would save because they would not have to pay a crew of people to monitor their customers usage, turn people off, piss people off, then have everyone jump ship.

do your customers a favor, make them like you, and you earn a customer for life – and this is NOT what ATT is doing in the least.

(i changed to Sprint because of ATT’s constant screwing of their customers. Sprint called me and asked if i wanted to change my unlimited data plan from $15/mo to $10/mo. i asked “would i still be able to get unlimited data?” they said “yes, we would just like to save you another $5/mo.” Sprint just earned a customer for life for my business.)

I don’t like restricting tethering but as a Verizon customer I am used to it. The fact of the matter is users are more likely to abuse the bandwidth if they tether. I have seen people uploading video to YouTube, downloading large video files, etc., while tethering. That’s what they don’t want you to do and why they restrict it.

Even unlimited data plans from each of the carriers using their dedicated modems restrict what you can do with the network in the TOS. They all ban video streaming, etc., even if they don’t limit how much you can transfer in a month.

It’s not a scam… your agreement when you purchased the data plan is that you would use it while you are on the device. Just because the plan say unlimited, it doesn’t mean you are given permission to tether. If you want to tether you should purchase either a tethering plan or use an aircard.

Just because you can bypass the software to enable tethering doesn’t mean its right.

This is sure to piss off a lot of people…I can only imagine the letters we’re gonna see posted on the Internet that are being posted on the Internet. It’s going to be like the Verizon data limitation scam all over again!

While it’s true that you’re required to pay extra for tethering by design, it doesn’t change the usage profiles that highlight the real problem here.

Push email is fairly data heavy, and it’s not just a Blackberry thing. Treos can use Exchange ActiveSync with Direct Push, the iPhone can do it from Yahoo, and Blackberry has the BES. However, the Blackberry plans cost the most, with the Smartphone plans coming up next, followed by the iPhone as a distant third.

If all three suck up as much data, then the only real difference I see is RIM’s licensing model. That still doesn’t explain the separation, especially when the iPhone is *designed* to make you use the mobile network. No matter what, I’ve got push-email, and I’m using the web for grabbing small chunks of data as needed. I may even use Google Maps. However, with the iPhone, I can see myself *goofing off* on the web much more readily, since the browser is that much more usable. Sure, that’s an experience issue, but why am I paying MORE when I’m using less data? Because the iPhone is more crippled? Does that really make a difference when I’m doing so much more with so much less?

I’d much rather see a tiered pricing model for data, since my own usage sans tethering isn’t all that high. I’m basically forced to pay for a gallon of water when all I need is a glass, while the iPhone users pay less than half for the same gallon, and use well more than a glass.

A restaurant that offers an all-you-can-eat buffet charges a cheaper price for children because they’re not going to eat as much. Despite the fact that it’s an “unlimited eating plan,” the restaurant can reasonably assume that your 4-year-old rugrat isn’t going to eat as much as you. And you recognize this. If you had to pay $8.99 (or $12.99 on steak night) for your child to eat, you’d cry “foul!”

The same is true for phone usage. You’re not going to surf as much on your mobile phone as you would do on your laptop, so in return, AT&T charges you less.