Using Hotspot with an Unlimited Wireless Plan

Actually the FCC has never said that a cell phone company can not block tethering. They said verizon could not block it as part of the stipulations on the 700 mhz bands was "Licensees offering service on spectrum subject to this section shall not deny, limit, or restrict the ability of their customers to use the devices and applications of their choice." Nowhere have they said other cell phone carriers are not allowed to block it, and have allowed at&t to do so for many many years with never any ruling or lawsuit saying otherwise.

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@Rural_Life_Pete wrote:

Living in a rural area in upstate NY I'm obviously a candidate for a product like a cellular hotspot.

What is the reason that AT&T does not allow a customer to use a hotspot with an unlimited plan?

Unlimited is MUCH a cheaper way to get LOTS of data, but if you want that that much data for a budget price, then it's only for ONE device. Multiple devices are going to use more data and aren't eligible to share unlimited data.

Devices like laptops generally eat through tons more data and more easily at a higher rate, so they likely don't want them sharing.

Is it a marketing plan to keep control of data usage or is it a technical issue that prevents AT&T from being able to manage more data usage over their existing network?  

If you want to push more data around any way you want, they offer a 100GB plan for $450 a month, so I'd think it's not a technical issue.

AT&T's Wireless Home Phone & Internet looks like a product that would adaquetly work but the data plans do not seem like a good value.  To me, as consumer, this looks a way to control data and make more money.

Wireless probably isn't the best affordable option for home use.

It IS AT&T's job to make more money for it's owners/investors.

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@rightofpassage wrote:

Actually the FCC has never said that a cell phone company can not block tethering.

Correct.  The FCC does not prohibit carriers from managing their network so that all customers can use it.  

They said verizon could not block it as part of the stipulations on the 700 mhz bands Uh, not quite.  Verizon is not allowed to throttle or lock their phones.  Tethering is not included in the FCC agreement.  Verizon has not offered the unlimited plan for several years and this is why they will never offer an unlimited plan again.  Their current no overage plan has a customer controlled, voluntary throttle.   was "Licensees offering service on spectrum subject to this section shall not deny, limit, or restrict the ability of their customers to use the devices and applications of their choice." Nowhere have they said other cell phone carriers are not allowed to block it, and have allowed at&t to do so for many many years with never any ruling or lawsuit saying otherwise.

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Verizon is allowed to block tethering on the unlimited plan.  Verizon cannot throttle or reprioritise.  But they did prohibit tethering unless customers paid a $30 additional fee on the unlimited plans.  This means those who are grandfathered with unlimited plans are paying $90 for a plan for talk and text, $50 for an unlimited data plan and $30 for the use of tethering.  $170 for one line, not including text, taxes or phone.  

The ability to buy the $30 tethering option was removed before the unlimited data plan ended and cannot be added to plans that have unlimited data anymore.  

The only option Verizon was left with to control a handful of abusive users, many of which were using hundreds of gigs a month, was to terminate their service.  In the past year Verizon started a campaign to get rid of the abusers.  First by raising the unlimited plan cost by $20.   Then notifying customers that if they used over 100 gigs a month they might have their service terminated.  

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@rightofpassage wrote:
@lizdance40 I may be misreading what I saw. Here is where I was getting that from.

http://lifehacker.com/5933152/the-right-to-tether-what-the-verizonfcc-settlement-means-to-you

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Go about half way down the page where it addresses the grandfathered unlimited data plan.  

Verizon has no right to prevent tethering for those paying by the gig or to charge extra to use that data.  This didn't apply to unlimited data plans, which by the date of that article were already gone.

Verizon (jerks that they are) was charging people $2.99 a month on limited 2 - 5 gig plans to use their tethering feature.  Smart consumers were downloading apps to get around the Verizon feature.  

Kind of like why would anyone pay to use ATT navigator when there are so many free apps?  

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@DecimateClout wrote:
Tethering has a standard definition. It's definition does not vary from carrier to carrier. Point is, blocking, throttling, or penalizing customers for using a feature if the hardware they own and using the data they are buying, simply so they are forced to purchase other services from you, is unethical and illegal. I recently had to buy the att unlimited data plan because att was unable to honor the contract I had with them with my uverse and dtv bundle. This is no different than telling home Internet customers they have to buy a service to use a wireless router and pay per device connected to it.

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@DecimateClout

I suppose you buy the all you can eat buffet, and then let everyone eat off your plate too?

The FCC defines unlimited data as an unlimited amount of data used by one device only.  

Tethering is sharing with multiple devices.   The FCC also does not require a certain quality or speed of data, which means the data does not have to be at LTE speeds.  

https://www.wired.com/2015/06/fcc-reminds-att-insane-offer-unlimited-data/