AT&T lays down the law about jailbreak tethering

Unknown above me is right. There are other reasons also. One of the reasons is general control. At&t selected a few people to make an example of, so make many users would think twice about what they do with their mobile data. Once its published; and many are quick to do so, customers get paranoid about data usage because they fear the worst. At&t cannot detect a tethering app. That doesn't make any sense. At&t doesn't just monitor data usage, they measure the amount of data usage per data call. Every time your device disconnects and reconnects to another data call, it is time stamped with the amount of usage. If you use a very large, let's say, 500 MB or 1GB of data in one or 2 data calls, they might assume that you are tethering. This might explain why no tethering individuals have gotten flagged with the text. Then again, the text may be randomized to make a statement. At&t, like some other companies do things to see how the masses will respond, like a test. They have people to track some forums and respond. Like one guy said, they must have a bat signal or something. Based on what they read, they can definitely tell that most people have no idea of what they are talking about, or what's going on.They keep on doing the same mess. Remember when they released the atrix and inspire with the HSUPA restricted in the firmware? Many managers in the retail stores would tell you that you don't know what your are talking about. I worked with some kid around the time the iphone 3GS came out. He had one with the unlimited data plan obviously he got tether happy at that time. I know a bandwidth hog when I see one, but hey unlimited is unlimited right? He got a bill over $7000.00. He crapped a brick. I've never seen that before, but it happened again. I heard that At&t got sued for that once. One of the ways that you can sense that at&t's data is limited is the way they measure it. They also have a data trend usage for each previous month. You can view this on your account online. They can too. Don't get me wrong, I will tell you that At&t has some excellent data performance on average. There is low ping, low jitter, and excellent speed in one package with HSPA. I mentioned this because the service is good by performance, but if you want something unlimited and mobile, get something else like WiMax if you need big bandwidth speed and don't mind a little less response time. If you must tether with At&t, I wouldn't recommend you going overboard as though it is fiber running to your house. More that likely they will mess with you, to set an example of you. By the way, they do it because they don't expect you to fight back.

the reason this move was made by AT&T is because of all the jail broken iphones tethering with unlimited data is slowing down the network for the rest of the users Verizon is having the same issue and they announced last week that they are switching to tired plans like AT&T no more unlimited and if you have unlimited with Verizon you lose it when your contract is up. Would i love to be able to tether with my unlimited data plan on my iphone yes but that's no longer viable option.

the customer is paying for the data. he can use it however he wants. they already charge too much for it, how can they tell a customer how to use his data?

I agree with most everyone here, I too have an unlimited iPhone Data Plan that my mom signed my dad and I up for back in 2009. I understand where AT&T is coming from, "People that use 3G to excess will slow down connections for everyone else" and I appreciate where they are coming from. But what exactly is the limit on which you can download? 6G or 8G? They never classify. I am in an area where I live right outside of the DSL lines. So I use 3G for personal use on my computer. But to force us to sign up to something we never agreed to seems rather inappropriate. Don't you think?

Poor Americans, I have 6GB of data and Mobile Hotspot INCLUDED for only 30$ a month with Rogers...

There should be a class action lawsuit against both at&t and verizon. Data is data and they have no business charging an additional fee just because data is coming from a different device. You have a data cap (at&t and unlimited on verizon - you should be able to use that data as advertised without additional use charges) This practice is akin to the local water company charging more for using the sink then the outside faucet.

Why isn't there a outrage about blocking the use of the plan you paid for. unlimited means Unlimited and does not specify how it can be used. Good this no doubt will FORCE ATT to open and honor it's agreement They did not hesitate to sell you an unlimited plan and now they think they can back you out financially. Lawsuit pending count on it.

I have an unlimited data plan - why should I have to pay for an additional feature just to tether?

Ugh.

Automatically change your plan and increase it by at least $20?!?! Seems slightly illegal to do so. I pay for unlimited data and shall do with it as I please.

Man, you guys to the South are getting screwed hard. Up here in Canuckistan, Rogers is giving away Personal Hotspot for free, so long as you have a data plan that meets the requirements.