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Comment by dorkwood | Hacker News Reader

> Today, more than a quarter of low-income Americans depend solely on their phones for internet access. Amid historic levels of income inequality, phones and data plans have become an increasingly costly burden on those who have the least to spare.

One thing I noticed about America after moving there was that they don't allow you to tether to your phone's internet from your computer. Phone data is only allowed to be used from your phone -- you have to pay for a separate internet connection if you want to check email on your computer. I found this to be pretty disgusting.

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This is carrier specific.

In fact, between my spouse, my dad and I, we have 4 lines with Mint Mobile, and they do not prevent us from tethering or using our data as hotspots.

The 3 smartphone only plans are $15/month, unlimited talk/text, 4GB data. the 4th plan is $20/month, 10GB data, and sits in an LTE hotspot, handling his modest home internet needs.

Where he lives (very rural), he'd have to pay thousands to get cable internet (or worse, DSL) run to his house, so this is a great alternative. But just a few years ago, this kind of thing was harder to find, harder to set up, more expensive, slower, with lower data caps. Competition helps, but the situation isn't perfect.

That's not a general rule. It's entirely dependent upon which plan options you choose.

In some countries this, along with carrier locks, are expressly forbidden by customer protection laws.

Sidenote: I’d love if phones (and other metered connections) could communicate bandwidth budgets to laptops through DHCP option 43 or something. Metered connections have been a thing (for better or worse) for awhile now, but laptops have only coarse-grained means of dealing with them, and require the user to indicate that it’s metered.

Wow, is that still the case? I've been on one of the smaller resellers for years, and can tether just fine (and my phone bill is cheaper, too). I assumed the tether restrictions were long over, but maybe the big carriers are still being predatory and charging more to allow tethering?

Verizon customer here: I’ve been able to tether using my iPhone for no extra cost for years.

It also happens on some PAYG plans in Europe. The tether toggle is simply disabled.

I don’t think thats the case anymore. I can tether my iPhone without paying.

It depends on the plan and carrier. Until very recently (last year or so) Verizon continued to charge extra for tethering.

This must vary by location or plan. I'm in the US and I've been tethering to various Verizon and AT&T iPhones for as long as I can recall, and I don't remember ever having to pay extra for tethering support.

It varied by plan. The newest unlimited plans have it included at all levels, until recently the shared family plans (I think) had it as an add-on. I don’t remember the details, only that my son was on a different et plan than my wife for a while (but within 2-3 years) because he needed tethering for work (we’re all on same account).

I haven’t been charged for it for at least 4 years on Verizon, but it might be done through iPhone software or something because my old Android phone from many years ago prompted me to pay when I tried to tether.

Are there ways around them detecting this?

That is built into the OS of iPhones but not Androids.

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