VZW disabling tethering apps from market

[kodiak799]

Well, interesting if Wireless tether and barnacle are still out there, because they require root (which probably less than 5% of users have done). But if you want to take a chunk out of abuse, the non-rooted people abusing pda.net is a good starting place.

Also, all data is not the same. If you switch user agent on your phone to computer and tether, the same webpages are going to download more data. Screen size does matter - more pixels = more data. I know, for example, that a netflix movie on a smartphone is compressed to like 150megs, but the same movie on a PC is compressed to only like 2gigs.

So, aside from consuming much more data, naturally, when you take away the natural constraint of screen size, that PC is going to take more data in cases of movies and some webpage content/flash. Now, I FULLY agree if data plans are capped then VZW shouldn't care - tethering should be included, or even techinically if your usage is reasonable (say <5gigs overall). But there clearly is a problem with unlimited data EXCLUSIVELY on your phone and now using much more data than reasonable because you're tethering other devices. It's like one person going to an all you can eat buffet and then bringing their 5 children eating off the same plate, the latter consumes more.

Anyway, do I applaud this move? Yes and no. I'll reserve judgement. I want to occasionally be able to tether in a pinch, very reasonable and minimal usage. If they just target those using this as a home broadband replacement, then I'm all for it. And, sorry, but 2 gigs (for $20) is both ridiculously overpriced and pretty useless. They obviously do that solely to get people needing more to bump to a min. of $50 for 5gig data card (nothing in between or scaled). So I see the logic but it's not very consumer friendly.

No need for a data card with an LTE smartphone and they need to develop plans to reflect that.

 

[Big Lou]

LMAO. This isn't going to stop anything.

 

[freezyfreaky]

LMAO. This isn't going to stop anything.

I agree. I predict sometime in the next 2-3 years Verizon is going to pursue a criminal case against someone who tethered and used an extraordinary amount of data in an attempt to discourage others just like the RIAA did with P2P file sharing.

 

[jkhonea]

LMAO. This isn't going to stop anything.

I agree. I predict sometime in the next 2-3 years Verizon is going to pursue a criminal case against someone who tethered and used an extraordinary amount of data in an attempt to discourage others just like the RIAA did with P2P file sharing.

Now that is a possibility I can see. Like mentioned earlier, yes, there was some abuse of the 3G tethering with large downloads but the 4G tethering has the potential to be MUCH worse.

 

[freezyfreaky]

LMAO. This isn't going to stop anything.

I agree. I predict sometime in the next 2-3 years Verizon is going to pursue a criminal case against someone who tethered and used an extraordinary amount of data in an attempt to discourage others just like the RIAA did with P2P file sharing.

Now that is a possibility I can see. Like mentioned earlier, yes, there was some abuse of the 3G tethering with large downloads but the 4G tethering has the potential to be MUCH worse.

Since I got my swami hat on, I also predict that more reasonable pricing for tethering and/or the addition of home broadband replacement pricing will come out afterwards due to market forces and user demand.

 

[pc747]

Changed thread title

sent from droidforums app

 

[jkhonea]

I agree. I predict sometime in the next 2-3 years Verizon is going to pursue a criminal case against someone who tethered and used an extraordinary amount of data in an attempt to discourage others just like the RIAA did with P2P file sharing.

Now that is a possibility I can see. Like mentioned earlier, yes, there was some abuse of the 3G tethering with large downloads but the 4G tethering has the potential to be MUCH worse.

Since I got my swami hat on, I also predict that more reasonable pricing for tethering and/or the addition of home broadband replacement pricing will come out afterwards due to market forces and user demand.

That's what I'm hoping. I honestly would be happy with a flat fee for 2gb or 5gb allotment of data to use as we pleased. That would be a fantastic compromise, in my opinion.

 

[iami]

If people are going to keep comparing tether to an all you can eat buffet then i believe they should do the comparison correctly. Tethering is not like bringing your children or five friends to eat off your plate. If I was allowing everyone who is standing next to me to use my tethering then I can see why you can say that. But only I am using my tethering, it is my internet that I already paid for and should not have to pay for it twice. You can say this is like me bringing a bigger plate to eat off of so i can eat faster but i am not sharing it only I am using it. Saying I cant use my web that i pay for on my phone for my laptop or my ipod to download small apps which is the only reason i tether is like a cable company saying i am paying for the internet at home but not alowed to use a router to send a single to my cell-ipod-laptop- and or any other device. Are they going to start charging me extra at home now for every device I want to use on my wifi single. One person here said it right. If they want to cap us at say five gigs fine, as long as the wifi in that case is no extra charge. Charginbg us 20 bucks for two gigs is crazy i can see 20 bucks for unlimeted wifi use but two gigs. Or maybe someone like me who maybes uses half a gig to one gig a month every third month since most months i dont use it at all. you can charge us a reasonable 5 bucks a month. I have been working in the cell industry for ten yrs now and i have never sold the 20 service for any company people rather not use it or yell at me saying im already paying for it and i agree with them

 

[New2u]

Well, interesting if Wireless tether and barnacle are still out there, because they require root (which probably less than 5% of users have done). But if you want to take a chunk out of abuse, the non-rooted people abusing pda.net is a good starting place.

Also, all data is not the same. If you switch user agent on your phone to computer and tether, the same webpages are going to download more data. Screen size does matter - more pixels = more data. I know, for example, that a netflix movie on a smartphone is compressed to like 150megs, but the same movie on a PC is compressed to only like 2gigs.

So, aside from consuming much more data, naturally, when you take away the natural constraint of screen size, that PC is going to take more data in cases of movies and some webpage content/flash. Now, I FULLY agree if data plans are capped then VZW shouldn't care - tethering should be included, or even techinically if your usage is reasonable (say <5gigs overall). But there clearly is a problem with unlimited data EXCLUSIVELY on your phone and now using much more data than reasonable because you're tethering other devices. It's like one person going to an all you can eat buffet and then bringing their 5 children eating off the same plate, the latter consumes more.

Anyway, do I applaud this move? Yes and no. I'll reserve judgement. I want to occasionally be able to tether in a pinch, very reasonable and minimal usage. If they just target those using this as a home broadband replacement, then I'm all for it. And, sorry, but 2 gigs (for $20) is both ridiculously overpriced and pretty useless. They obviously do that solely to get people needing more to bump to a min. of $50 for 5gig data card (nothing in between or scaled). So I see the logic but it's not very consumer friendly.

No need for a data card with an LTE smartphone and they need to develop plans to reflect that.

True netflix playing on your phone doesn't consume as much then on a computer, but i can go to any site and change it from mobile to normal website viewing and it will consume just as much data as the website i would look at on my computer. But adding a netflix app with 4g capability and then saying oh well we are going to tiered data and only let you do 5g for the same price as unlimited 3g. So listening to pandora and watching netflix daily would put you over the limit.

 

[freezyfreaky]

Now that is a possibility I can see. Like mentioned earlier, yes, there was some abuse of the 3G tethering with large downloads but the 4G tethering has the potential to be MUCH worse.

Since I got my swami hat on, I also predict that more reasonable pricing for tethering and/or the addition of home broadband replacement pricing will come out afterwards due to market forces and user demand.

That's what I'm hoping. I honestly would be happy with a flat fee for 2gb or 5gb allotment of data to use as we pleased. That would be a fantastic compromise, in my opinion.

I agree. If they are going with tiered pricing, there shouldn't be the same restrictions as unlimited data. Tethering should be allowed. There should be no automatic bandwidth throttle threshold. Bandwidth throttling should only happen if there is an issue happening with their network.

 

[Beardface]

Since I got my swami hat on, I also predict that more reasonable pricing for tethering and/or the addition of home broadband replacement pricing will come out afterwards due to market forces and user demand.

So let me get this straight... You think once Verizon successfully locks everyone else out of providing tethering on their network, they are going to lower their prices for everyone?

Nope, not happening. In fact, its more likely they come out with stricter guidelines, harsher penalties, and a higher baseline cost for the services. You speak of market forces and user demand. Those are meaningless if they are the only ones providing that service on their network. If they have no competition, why would they set a competitive price? If anything, they'll set a monopolistic price and you can take it or leave it.


This is like thinking that once OPEC seals control over the entire world's stock of oil, they'll lower prices due to market forces.

 

[freezyfreaky]

Since I got my swami hat on, I also predict that more reasonable pricing for tethering and/or the addition of home broadband replacement pricing will come out afterwards due to market forces and user demand.

So let me get this straight... You think once Verizon successfully locks everyone else out of providing tethering on their network, they are going to lower their prices for everyone?

Nope, not happening. In fact, its more likely they come out with stricter guidelines, harsher penalties, and a higher baseline cost for the services. You speak of market forces and user demand. Those are meaningless if they are the only ones providing that service on their network. If they have no competition, why would they set a competitive price? If anything, they'll set a monopolistic price and you can take it or leave it.


This is like thinking that once OPEC seals control over the entire world's stock of oil, they'll lower prices due to market forces.

The reason why I believe this can happen is because if enough people are "stealing" their service and they can't stop it, it may be worth their while to try and make some money off it by making it cheaper so some of those tetherers will pay instead of prosecuting their customers and driving them away. Sort of what happened with the music industry.

 

[jkhonea]

Since I got my swami hat on, I also predict that more reasonable pricing for tethering and/or the addition of home broadband replacement pricing will come out afterwards due to market forces and user demand.

So let me get this straight... You think once Verizon successfully locks everyone else out of providing tethering on their network, they are going to lower their prices for everyone?

Nope, not happening. In fact, its more likely they come out with stricter guidelines, harsher penalties, and a higher baseline cost for the services. You speak of market forces and user demand. Those are meaningless if they are the only ones providing that service on their network. If they have no competition, why would they set a competitive price? If anything, they'll set a monopolistic price and you can take it or leave it.


This is like thinking that once OPEC seals control over the entire world's stock of oil, they'll lower prices due to market forces.

What he is describing is actually in par from the initial word on tiered pricing. It is absolutely possible there will be something along the lines of $19 pricing for 2gb and then going up from there. The only unknown factor is the possibility of wrapping tethering into that allotted amount of memory. And they don't have a monopoly. There are still several other providers, so they can only go so far.

 

[kodiak799]

You can say this is like me bringing a bigger plate to eat off of so i can eat faster but i am not sharing it only I am using it.

But bringing the bigger plate is not the agreement. Your usage patterns change, your data size changes (like for Netflix, and websites because while you can run PC on your Droid, most probably go the mobile route because it's easier to navigate).

VZW understand that, which is why they sold you unlimited data in a very specific context - on your Droid only. Changing that context and saying data is data is not correct because your contract clearly does not provide for data piped into another device.

 

[Dusty]

Since I got my swami hat on, I also predict that more reasonable pricing for tethering and/or the addition of home broadband replacement pricing will come out afterwards due to market forces and user demand.

So let me get this straight... You think once Verizon successfully locks everyone else out of providing tethering on their network, they are going to lower their prices for everyone?

Nope, not happening. In fact, its more likely they come out with stricter guidelines, harsher penalties, and a higher baseline cost for the services. You speak of market forces and user demand. Those are meaningless if they are the only ones providing that service on their network. If they have no competition, why would they set a competitive price? If anything, they'll set a monopolistic price and you can take it or leave it.


This is like thinking that once OPEC seals control over the entire world's stock of oil, they'll lower prices due to market forces.

The reason why I believe this can happen is because if enough people are "stealing" their service and they can't stop it, it may be worth their while to try and make some money off it by making it cheaper so some of those tetherers will pay instead of prosecuting their customers and driving them away. Sort of what happened with the music industry.

Nope. People who use questionable apps to tether and don't pay for tethering are the "BoogieMen" they need to justify a price hike at any time.

They'll always do what they can to make it difficult to do, but never enough to make the "them" stop. It's a convenient "problem".