Verizon Wireless Must Allow Free Tethering After FCC Ruling Discussion

[Valerie Sarnataro]

Thanks to a ruling by the FCC, a large number of Verizon Wireless customers will once again be able to tether freely, without having to pay a monthly fee to the carrier for the privilege of using their phones as a Wi-Fi hotspot.

Read the full content of this Article: Verizon Wireless Must Allow Free Tethering After FCC Ruling

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[RickAgresta]

for anyone interested in further details, following link helps (disclaimer: it is an editorial with, imho, reasonable analysis; I'm not endorsing or disagreeing).
A Missed Opportunity By The FCC In Ruling Against Verizon - Editorials - RootzWiki - RootzNews - RootzWiki

key in the ruling is that it seems to apply only to 4G phones, and only to the wireless flavor of tethering.

[The Turtle]

Still a positive step forward, nonetheless.

[Guest]

Why is this specific to Verizon? There are 51 markets that have AT&T LTE.

I'm not in one of those markets, but I still enjoy watching AT&T lose in court.

[r0k]

I was stuck in a run down motel by the side of a muddy road with no internet. Well, that's not entirely true. I was at a Hilton with a Concierge in the lobby, free parking and everything... but internet. These bozos wanted to charge $10.95 per night PER DEVICE to use the internet. And their so-called free internet in the lobby was down for 5 of the 7 days I was there. After threatening to check out on the first day, they agreed to waive the outrageous charges but I wonder how many people fork over that insane amount of money just to use the internet? Just for comparison, there was a vendor in the mall across the street that sold an LTE hotspot for $99 plus $35 a month for unlimited internet access for up to 8 devices. And the device was on sale for $49. So for less than 2 nights worth of hotel charges I could have had internet in my room for my iPad, PC, iPhone, Android tablet and even my camera's eyefi card. Another option that occurred to me was turning on my phone's hotspot. I called At&t and to turn on my hotspot, I would have had to walk away from my grandfathered $25/2GB plan and sign up for a $50 plan. This would have been less than one night's charges but I would never be able to go back to a $25 plan ever again.

When utilities, local governments, banks, doctors and pharmacies can save money by doing business with us over the internet, why don't they all "chip in" to offset some of these outlandish fees? Internet access is becoming a basic human right. Coincidentally, I read an article on CNN stating that JD Power ratings for hotels were at their lowest since 2006 and the culprit was these silly internet charges. All I can say is I hope this spreads to all carriers and not just on LTE so the next time I've got some hotelier with a crappy internet policy, I can at least still do my job without having to resort to wardriving or looking for McDonald's or Panera. BTW, the closest Panera in Houston was 10 miles from my hotel. I guess Panera's not big in Houston just yet.

[Guest]

I called At&t and to turn on my hotspot, I would have had to walk away from my grandfathered $25/2GB plan and sign up for a $50 plan. This would have been less than one night's charges but I would never be able to go back to a $25 plan ever again.

I know AT&T won't let you add tethering to a grandfathered *unlimited* plan, but this is actually kind of shocking to me. Didn't they advertise tethering as an option at the time you bought the plan?

Considering Matt Spaccarelli defeated AT&T in small claims court even though he admitted to "illicit" unpaid tethering on his unlimited plan, for AT&T to deny you access to a form of tethering that they advertised (and you were willing to pay for) seems rather unwise to me.

[SGosnell]

Panera isn't that big, but there are thousands of Starbucks.

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