Why does tethering cost extra

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Please enter your postcode below. Finding you. Open Mon to Sat. Open Sun. Book an appointment. I agree. How have they managed to make it so difficult to find out which phones still can be tethered?

Limiting tethering seems to be just one of the ways of milking customers who have ben tempted with a low monthly fee. My problem is even getting that far. My Motorola V8 is getting a bit long in the tooth.

I cannot find anywhere a list of simple phones which can be tethered. Looking on the manufacturers websites, the information on this seems to be missing or buried. None of the sites which offer phone selection by feature seem to include tethering as an option. A lot of the new phones seem to have ditched this feature. Am I missing something? I just found this thread after searching long and hard for a mobile phone contract, finally deciding on one and then discovering that the phone company 3 — so obviously they have got on board with this since the article was written would impose a charge for the privilege of accessing my data via my laptop.

I am absolutely baffled as to why anyone would even think of imposing such a charge. Is it even legal? If I bought a car, would I have to pay extra if I wanted to use it to transport passengers? Now it seems that other companies are doing this too? How is this allowed and what is being done to stop it?

Thanks Rachel. It is just one of the ways that the mobile service providers manage to annoy customers. I assume that the companies are doing this now that it has become more popular to tether laptops and tablets to phones. If you look at the MVNOs smaller service providers that use the well known mobile networks , check that they provide a 4G service.

When I checked a couple of years ago, some did and some did not. I have an O2 sim-free contract because it allows tethering. I needed that before landline broadband was installed in my house. We do this to protect the data experience of the vast majority of our members over the few — tethering can take up a disproportionate amount of network capacity.

I did look at giffgaff a couple of years ago but at the time it did not offer 4G and I was thinking about moving to an area with weak O2 coverage, so I might not have been able to receive calls reliably. I will check again before my present contract ends. It makes sense to pay for what you use and prevent network overloading. Mobile phones have taken over peoples lives completely they are a MUST have for them to do all they have to do anywhere at all.

Mobile phone networks are just taking advantage of this by charging extra for anything other than calls if they believe they can without customers complaining or moving on to another network Does anyone stop and think or use common sense today I wonder at times Pity computers do not have any common sense to do the thing many used before doing anything at all.

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The TOS agreements of all carriers have pages of fine print that state essentially that even if you pay the fees, you cannot do things they don't like. Some carriers prohibit streaming video, and most take a dim view of P2P file sharing. Hosting a server using the data network is a big no-no. The point is these restrictions demonstrate clearly that carriers don't believe that customers are entitled to use the amount of data that is paid for in any way the customer desires.

Fair or not, the carrier holds all the cards and they own the network so they make the rules. Unpaid tethering makes you a thief ». No matter how you justify it to yourself, if you enable unpaid tethering on a network that doesn't allow it you are a thief. That sounds harsh but it is the only way the carrier will view it when they crack down on such behavior.

It's also important as it indicates that while the carrier has known about this activity for a while, it now believes the time has come to get paid as planned. Like it or not, the free ride is about to be over for those who tether without paying. I don't like paying high fees with limited usage any more than anyone, but the carriers have a point about charging more for hotspot usage. While today's smartphones are pretty powerful and can consume a good bit of data on the network, there is little doubt that connecting multiple devices to the network results in a higher usage.

Most customers are connecting laptops and tablets through the connection, and these use more data than phones. The result is a higher load on the data network the more tethering is in practice. The carrier's other customers are negatively impacted the more it happens, and carriers believe they should get compensated to provide funds to beef up the network to keep up with increased demand.

Customers are not reluctant to complain loudly when the network strain is too much, so I can see the carrier's point.

All customers want good service no matter how they use the network, perhaps those that are paying their fair share even more than those who don't. You can justify it to yourself anyway you want that you are not stealing, but the courts would likely view that differently.

As soon as the argument is made that you violated the contract and the TOS, you deliberately changed your phone to allow unpaid tethering and then you repeatedly connected other devices to the carrier's network through the phone's connection, your credibility is pretty much shot. Fair or not doesn't enter into it, the facts speak volumes. You can try and justify it anyway you want, but unpaid tethering is theft of service from the carriers.

Nobody likes the big bad carrier, but stealing is stealing no matter who is the victim. Eventually we'll hear about someone getting dragged into court for such tethering, and it's not going to end well for them.

We don't pay for a certain amount of mobile data we can use however we want, no matter how much we wish it were so. They can cancel the service outright, although the argument can be made that they don't want to cut paying customers. Most likely they will start making you pay, and I wouldn't be surprised if at least one carrier tries to make that retroactive.