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Comment by juiceandjuice | Hacker News Reader

The most important reason why this is a no-brainer is because of the 700Mhz spectrum auction. The open device restriction (or lack of restrictions really) was a key provision that google pushed for.

I'm sure some people are going to say the government is overstepping their authority, but in fact, they aren't. Verizon was overstepping their authority in this case.

Everybody has google to thank for this.

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Of note... Verizon could theoretically still charge a tethering fee so long as no data was routed through the 700Mhz spectrum.

Verizon's LTE is only on 700MHz. They could charge a tethering fee on their old CDMA network, but that seems like it wouldn't work when their LTE network won't have a fee.

Was this a separate deal from the one where Google and Verizon screwed over wireless net neutrality?

Um, they didn't? What are you talking about?

Yes they certainly did:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/08/google-verizon-netneut...

You'll note that document is divided into Good, Interesting, Troubling and Fail sections.

It certainly is less than ideal, but I guess that is true of most compromises.

Yea, the biggest problem is whether FCC had the authority to impose these rules or does it have to go through Congress? And yea it is pretty much separate.

I guess this is nice to see, but with Verizon's new data plans they are eager for you to use as much bandwidth as possible.

Thankfully and at the moment there are carriers that provide unlimited data like Sprint. We need more of them!

Doesn't Sprint also throttle you over a certain GB limit?

I have a hard time deciding if I want unlimited or not. I certainly don't need unlimited. I know there are people who use 50-100+ GB a month but I don't come anywhere near that and don't want to subsidize those people. I'm perfectly fine with a per GB charge or a decent sized base plan and a reasonable per GB overage. OTOH those caps need to grow every year because in a few years 100 GB a month will probably be today's 200 MB plan. So in that case "unlimited" has some futureproofing to it.

I had a Sprint 4G hotspot with unlimited data. Until one month they decided to change my plan to 5GB with big overage charges. They "announced" this change by slipping a notice in the PDF ebills I never once downloaded. After $200 in overage charges (which I disputed for hours, only to be repeatedly told I was given "valid" notice) I cancelled the service. Fuck Sprint.

I should mention this occurred right at the same time they were making a big advertising push about how their unlimited data plans were truly unlimited. The fine print was that only phones got unlimited data. Hotspots and other data devices were pushed onto a limited plan even if you started out unlimited. Fuck Sprint some more.

:) The sad part is they got a "free" $200 from you. I don't think they mind losing you as a customer!

Oh they should. Word-of-mouth will cost more than $200 in potential customers from Sprint because of this person and their experience.

From what I remember in their recent PR campaign, they won't ever throttle you.

Sprint? Right. Unlimited data is meaningless if both 3G and 4G are limited to 600kbits/s and your ping times are through the roof.

Capitalism always tends to offering unlimited amounts of scarse resources. Just keep waiting!

Doesn't Sprint charge for tethering too? (I currently have a Sprint plan. I'm pretty sure that it's unlimited data, but they don't allow tethering without paying extra fees or rooting your device.)

On my plan, not only do I have to pay for tethering on my "unlimited" plan, I am also limited to 3 or 5 gig of tethered data depending on how much I pay for tethering! The data on the phone is unlimited, tethered data is not.

That's a hell of a rent-seek for "-j MASQUERADE" at the bottom of it all. Sigh. jailbreak. This sure is going to seem quaint to our kids.

Yes, it's $29.99/month to enable the Sprint Hotspot. They disable the built-in tethering in Android and hide most tethering apps from the Play store.

That said, you can tether over USB or bluetooth with PdaNet or FoxFi without paying any fees or rooting the phone.

I just read the other day that if you disable the tethering on Sprint's website and only enable it on days that you need it, they actually pro-rate the $29.99/month charge to only the days that you enable or use it. So it comes out to $1/day rather than the whole $30/month. Still haven't confirmed that, but I need to look into it.

Yes, that's correct. I've tried the official Sprint Wi-Fi tethering on an HTC Evo 4G for a couple of days and I was only charged for those days. The device supports up to eight wireless connections. Setup was over the phone and was effective immediately. The last time I did this was in early 2010 and the experience was flawless. It's overall not worth the money to me, though, to leave it enabled permanently. There are some USB tethering apps that require a little client-side setup but they've worked for me as a casual single client solution.

blue tooth tethering sucks. it keeps disconnecting and i have to go through like a 8 step process to get it working again. FoxFi worked beautifully until i installed an update and it was blocked. now FoxFi is working on getting around ICS 4.0.4 on sprint. WTF is sprint thinking? why do they think people choose android over iphone? it's supposed to be more open. im so tired of this bullshit cat and mouse game.

I can't speak for the reliability of jailbreak tethering methods, but I only use Bluetooth for Personal Hotspot on my iPhone and it works flawlessly with no connection issues at all (though I do have tethering as a legitimate part of my plan).

I don't know what's wrong with your phone, but I have no such issues. Bluetooth is perfectly reliable and takes one click to connect/disconnect.

I don't know much about the auction and the restriction you're talking about.

Even if anyone can use that spectrum, can't I charge someone for using my data network across that spectrum? I mean, presumably, Verizon is providing the endpoint you're connecting to.

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