There's simply no justifiying tetherering.
Exactly. You can make up every excuse in the book, but when it comes down to it you did NOT purchase tethering, and to make it worse for you, you specifically agreed that you cannot tether based on the provisions of the plan that you
did purchase. No matter how you slice it, doggie bags, water, soda, cars, forks, spoons, it doesn't matter. You paid for smartphone unlimited data, and smartphone unlimited data only. If you can find a way to run up 50GB using only your smartphone, VZW cannot say anything to you and they won't. But the minute you download even 1/2 MB using tethering, you have violated something that you agreed to and signed. There's no getting around it.
Except they can, and will throttle you, drop your connection, and potentially even cancel your contract because you used "too much" of your "UNLIMITED" data. That's in your contract too. There's already network congestion and throttling occurring during primetime hours simply because the network is inadequate to the demands of the customers, and pathetically inadequate compared to the potential consumption possible under a truly "UNLIMITED" data plan by simply having 3g upload/download "ON" for an entire billing cycle .
Consumer data demands are rapidly increasing and consumers need to start advocating for better products/service and stop letting giant corporations nickle and dime them for services, then blatantly price fix those same services up to their competitors established prices, and finally stop hiding behind the festering legalese contractual bureaucracy that gives them complete leeway to do so.
Cellphones/networks are dangerously close to becoming essential parts of American life. Cellphones already completely replace land line phones for many people. Within 50 years, a cellphone may also be your ID, bank card, credit card, and primary computing tool, merely connecting Atrix style to a terminal. These phone companies are in a very strong position of power currently, and going into the future. The fact that there are so few options, and all of them being run by for-profit business trying to maximize profits at the expense of quality at every turn is what is so troubling.
Consumers, if anything, need to be more vocal about voicing dissatisfaction over the current contractual clauses, network congestion, network infrastructure, and the available tether options. These products, and the communcation/data sharing they allow, have the potential to completely change the world and the way we interact with it. They also have the potential to be utterly stifled by greed, lawyers, and asinine contractual clauses only present because of the near monopoly the major players have, and their willingness to lobby/price fix their way into keeping them and a few more dollars.
I realize this post, more than my others, is going to come off as highly "leftist". And I hope we can continue to keep the debate civil. I won't slippery slope you with first tethering soon "XXX", I'm merely pointing out the hypocrisy in them saying this 1GB is fine, but that other one will cost you $30, but enjoy your UNLIMITED DATA (that we'll throttle/remove your access to if you use it too much). We are letting these companies get away with more and more at our expense, simply because of how important cellphones are becoming to American culture. Every new phone has more bloatware and programs you can't remove. Isn't it about time consumers actually start advocating for what they want?
