Verizon & wireless tethering

[badbeat33]

Im rooted and in the past Ive used my wireless tethering app pretty frequently but Ive been hearing rumors that if Big Red catches you doing this they will remove you from your pre-existing unlimited data plan and put you on one of the new capped plans. My questions are this:

A) If Im rooted and running a custom ROM can they really tell the difference between me tethering or just using a lot of data on my phone? (I average around 8GB a month during baseball season with the MLB At Bat app)

B) Has anyone else heard these rumors?

C) Has anyone actually been busted by Verizon for doing this?

Im thinking of getting the Kindle Fire and would like to know if I should plan on just using it at home via WiFi or if Ill be able to use my tethering app to give it a mobile wireless signal?

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[greyghost04]

I've never heard of anyone getting busted for tethering. Use Open Garden or Barnacle. They work flawlessly. You paid dearly for the data, use it where you want. It's like gasoline, you bought it, you can put it in any car you want.

 

[cloudman7]

They can not tell if you are tethering or using Ur own internet. That's one of the reasons big red is no longer unlimited do to people using up their slots downloading movies and large files and with more people doing that slows down the speeds that's why 4g is getting faster speeds than they say it would till everywhere goes 4g it will drop cause more people will be on that signal.

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[badbeat33]

Thanks guys. I'm really not even trying to stick it to big red as I will be using a lot of data either way. I'll either tether to my tablet and watch the baseball games or I will just watch them on my phone. I was just wanting to utilize the bigger screen. Sounds like I will be able to do that. Thanks again

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[Billyd]

I'm almost sure I read recently that VZW was somehow monitoring and could distinguish if you were tethered. I'm not that familiar with it and would recommend a search on the subject to be sure.

For viewing on the big screen you could use something like 2player to connect to any DLNA devices you might have, most newer wide-screen tvs, Blu-ray players and including Win7 which has DLNA by default. Also there is a free application for XP called Serviio which allows XP to provide a DLNA server.

Hope that is helpful.
X/BillyD..

 

[slave13]

I heard the same about verizon doing that i dont bother wit it i just use barnacle they seem to do the job

 

[jimmiem]

Take it for what it's worth, but I recently had an opportunity to ask a Verizon store manager candidly about this. She told me go for it because Verizon will never do anything about it unless I'm using an unGodly amount of data. She said that she was unofficial ly tethering too until she became a store manager and they issued her a phone with unlimited everything.

 

[geoff5093]

I believe they can tell if you're tethering legitimately using their mobile hotspot app, because it separates data used as mobile data and tethering data.

 

[greyghost04]

I've been on these Droid forums for about 2 years now(OK, maybe a little less). I've yet to see anyone report any punishment from Verizon. Telling your clients to leave for almost any reason has never been a good business model.

 

[badandy]

I've been on these Droid forums for about 2 years now(OK, maybe a little less). I've yet to see anyone report any punishment from Verizon. Telling your clients to leave for almost any reason has never been a good business model.

about a year and a half for me, and I average about 10gb/mo... no issues.
In fact, Ive been tethering with Verizon since before you even needed a data plan... the "dial #777" days, as far back as the LG vx6000... Verizions first camera phone!

 

[jimmyco2008]

Verizon can distinguish Tethering data from Smartphone data only when you "legally" tether. Your data connection, 3G at least, literally disconnects then reconnects under your @dun.VZW3G.com address. DUN obviously being dial up networking. 3G is *technically* very fast dial up, your phone is a modem, and it literally dials in on #777.

Anyway, Verizon cannot tell if you are illegally tethering, 3G or 4G, and it would cost more money to monitor us for "ungodly" data use, they'd have to hire more people for something they can't really dispute, using your unlimited data. Especially since they can't prove you are tethering, even with 32GB of data use per month.

But even if Verizon actively gave people the boot, so what, just go to Sprint, even they have LTE now.

 

[geoff5093]

My friend who was rooted on AT&T using a root-based wireless tethering app was caught by AT&T and had the tethering plan added. Having said that, I haven't heard any reports of rooted Verizon customers having this done.

By the way he only used a couple gigs that month.

 

[N4UPD]

Would it show up as tethering if you were not rooted and used either easy tether or PdaNet?

 

[jimmyco2008]

It would not show up in those instances.

Verizon does not check for tethering nor force people onto tethering plans, that's a dick move on AT&T's part.... but anyway, feel free to tether, even if it wasn't under Smartphone data, it would just direct you to Verizon's sign up page for tethering, you cannot tether under Verizon without signing up for it, if you didn't sign up for tethering and it is working, you are in the clear.!

 

[Tankanspank]

I've been tethering since the Droid 1 days, about 15 gigs a month. Got the T-bolt when it came out, and average about 45 gigs a month. Big red doesn't seem to care.