Surprising it is not, but unfortunate it remains. Carriers in the United States have started working together with Google to block tethering applications in the Android Market from running on certain Android devices. While this pretty much seems like a US-only thing, it’s still bad.
It’s no secret that carriers like Verizon and AT&T do not like tethering. They only like tethering when you pay for more expensive data plans that allow it, but if you don’t have such a plan, you’re not allowed, by the terms of service, to use tethering applications. Despite this, tethering applications were still available in the Android Market. This is now coming to an end, as carriers are working together with Google to block certain devices from installing these tethering devices from the Android Market.
As much as I am generally not a fan of Chris Ziegler, he makes a very good point here that Google might be violating the open access regulations that currently govern the 700Mhz spectrum – Verizon’s LTE network. The weird part here is that Google put $4.6 billion on the line to ensure the open access regulations came into effect, and now, it’s backing out of quite easily.
“It’s unclear what would possess Google to selectively block access to applications at a carrier’s whim after it put over $4.6 billion on the line simply to ensure that the 700MHz spectrum’s open access provisions went into effect,” Ziegler notes, “Heck, it even petitioned the FCC to block Verizon’s bidding back then when it had concerns over the company’s ultimate intentions!”
I would love to hear Google rationalising this one. Bring it.
AT&T: Help us block these tethering apps so we can sell more data and we’ll give you a percentage of the take.
Google: Ok
I think it’s more like:
Carriers: Help us block these tethering apps like Apple is doing for us or else we’ll decrease the Android advertising budget.
Google: Okay.
Agreed.
What I would love to hear, though, is the opinion of someone who actually publishes apps on the Market – is “Verizon doesn’t want it” allowed by Googles ‘open’ terms of service?
EDIT: hmmm, quoting Android Market Developer Program Policies
Network Usage and Terms
Applications must not create unpredictable network usage that has an adverse impact on a user’s service charges or an Authorized Carrier’s network. Applications also may not knowingly violate an Authorized Carrier’s terms of service for allowed usage or any Google terms of service.
Given the way the Android Market is fragmented into multiple, carrier-specific stores, this pretty much gives Google the right to remove apps such as PDANet from a specific Market – Verizons and AT&Ts for example.
Edited 2011-05-03 23:37 UTC
I think it’s more like:
Carriers: We like chocolate ice-cream, you like it too.
Google: Okay.
Oh really? Considering my original iPhone had tethering blocked – by the carrier – then later added as a fee service – by the carrier after complaints to Apple – then later made free – by the carrier after more complaints to Apple – and my current iPhone has four times the original’s monthly data limit and has HotSpot enabled, I’d suggest you might just be (yet again) wrong…
Hm, my HTC Thunderbolt from VZW came with a Mobile Hotspot app pre-installed that doesn’t require an extra line to piggy-back on my connection…
The Verizon FAQ here: http://wirelesssupport.verizon.com/faqs/Features+and+Optional+Servi…
6: Can I use my existing email and web for smartphone plan to access 3G Mobile Hotspot?
“No, the 3G Mobile Hotspot functionality is an additional optional feature that will have a $40 incremental cost with a 5GB data allowance with $0.05MB overage rate.”
So it is $40/month extra over my existing $45/month (unlimited lol) data plan and still has a 5G monthly cap.
Edit: To elaborate, as much as people complain about the 250G cap Comcast has for their $45 service the same amount of data would cost me $1,305/month if I use the Verizon tethering app to do it ($85 for the first 5G, $1,225 for the next 245G).
Edited 2011-05-04 01:22 UTC
Which is exactly why I like T-Mobile USA’s “unlimited” data plans. I have the $30/month plan with a soft cap at 5GB on my main line. After you reach that 5GB (which, let’s be honest, you would only do by tethering A LOT), your speed is capped somewhere around EDGE speeds — 256Kbps — until the next billing cycle. No overage fees, no sudden loss of service, just a friendly little reminder that you’re pulling down a massive amount of data. In a sense, it really is unlimited downloading, just with an eventual speed limit based on consumption.
I’m not sure what happens when you add the $15/month “unlimited” tethering plan to your account, but I do know that they don’t seem to care if you casually tether without it.
And after typing all of that I just realized that the $15/month 200MB data plan that I am required to have on my secondary line (Blackberry Curve 2G) is all I would ever need in the first place, since that phone is EDGE already and never even maxes out at 256Kbps.
Oh, man enjoy that while you can, before they become AT&T-mobile…
I’ve let my Verizon contract expire, especially since there’s no 4G in my area and thus no incentive for me to get a new phone. But I’m thinking my choices will be so limited that my leverage in doing so may be limited.
Mobile won’t even be in the name. It will be AT&T Wireless.
Don’t remind me. I’m not sure what I will do when that happens; I can try Virgin Mobile — they have an amazing $25/month unlimited data plan — but they are Sprint which has even less coverage than T-mo. *sigh*
I’m off by a full digit in my math. $0.05/mb is $50/gb or $12,250 for 245G in overage charges and $12,335 total for the month instead of the $45 that Comcast would charge for the same 250G. Annually that would be about $148,000.
NEWSFLASH: Buying a network locked phone from a carrier might restrict your freedom to use the phone how you wish!
Oh my, I wish somebody had mentioned this before.
</sarcasm>
I just put Cyanogen on my Motorola Cliq and now I feel it’s as good as, perhaps even better than, my N900 was. Apart from a buggy camera I haven’t found anything not to like about it, and it finally feels like a true smartphone.
It’s definitely faster, more stable and more fully featured than the official 2.1 update, and there was no way I could go back to the original 1.5 on it and suffer app withdrawal.
As for carrier lock, well the Cyanogen mod includes a wifi hotspot app that works amazingly well. This is something that required a paid app on the stock MotoBlur-Android, and that paid app always seemed capped at less than 1Mbps. With this one I got 5Mbps bursts and 2.3Mbps steady connections on my laptop, and that with a fairly weak 3G signal. It’s not Comcast, but it’s highly portable!
To be fair, it should be mentioned that some phones are only sold with a contract (in France, the Pre comes to mind).
And that in some countries of this world where telecom network policies date back from the stone age of computing (“hard” monthly download caps on broadband, heavy carrier customization, phone manufacturers who do not abide by carriers’ rules have no visibility on the market), it is the case of the vast majority of the phones sold on the national market.
Still my favorite description for the new Google version of ‘open’.
Anyway, what could possess Google? Maybe the carriers have said that they’ll either start charging Google for the ad delivery bandwidth or show users the bandwidth being used on ads (which sure ain’t free, especially on a mobile platform being almost exclusively monetized with ads!) and let them opt out / auto-firewall ad delivery?
“Wait, we’d have to pay to deliver those ads on our super-free-and-open platform?” thinks Google? “Uh, sure, we can block tethering and kiss any part of your carrier behinds you want.”
zpower on twitter wants to know why you are not his fan 😉
http://twitter.com/zpower
For once I can say, “never happen in Australia”. I can’t remember which telco was the first to do it, but for about 18 months now, Optus has been giving people tethering for free, and shouting from the rooftops all the cool benefits of it. They’ve been really pushing Android phones for their wireless tethering feature, and now iPhones have it too. Short of price-fixing, what has been given cannot be ungiven. No carrier would be brave enough to charge for tethering anymore, for fear of the competition.
I wonder what else will have to happen before Google fanboys accept the truth that Android is not open at all to its users. And stop using the Nexus phones as an example of openness. Tell me where to get a Nexus One or Nexus S phone for Verizon or MetroPCS. Tell me where to get a Nexus phone with a hardware keyboard… The Nexus phones are simply not the answer for everything and everybody. Truth remains that Android is open (whatever you can stretch the definition of “open” to be) ONLY to carriers and manufacturers so they can do whatever they want with the devices and then lock you out of it.
And before anyone comes with the loophole of using the Android Market via Wi-Fi after turning airplane mode: yes, that might prevent some carrier intervention… for now. Enjoy the party because loopholes like this one will be patched as carriers will continue to put pressure on Google, Amazon and any company that aspires to have a respectable app store.
Edited 2011-05-04 13:26 UTC
Or, don’t live in the US. That’s also an option.
And that fixes this problem:
:how?
Sure, I won’t. I’ll just point to most other phones that you can buy outright without going through the carrier.
No, but most of the people in the world don’t live in countries where every carrier uses a totally different protocol and frequency for simple voice calls. Okay, so it’s not really THAT bad in America… but it’s still twice as ridiculous a situation as it needs to be.
And why is it that Google haters like you keep blaming Google for what the carriers do? Thats like blaming the makers of knives for what Jeffrey Dalmer did. Google made an open device. What the carriers did afterward is on them. Don’t like it? Don’t buy their phone. Simple as that. Sooner or later a carrier will start offering internet access just like you buy air time for Trac phones. Then it won’t matter what you do with the device you hook up to it.
Not saying that I agree with the situation or its future implications, however, it seems to me that this would have little effect as the target audience for such software leans toward those who have some technical prowess.
So workaround = intall APK out of market?
Absolutely. You can still side-load the app from the developer’s website.
Although I can KINDA, SORTA understand carriers wanting to block tethering on unlimited plans (even though that is technically false advertising), but for metered accounts, it is absolutely unconscionable. It’s like if the water company has your service metered, and you can use the water for drinking, washing dishes, watering the lawn, etc. But then they want you to pay an extra $20 a month for you to be able to take showers. It makes me wonder how these crooks sleep at night.
The carrier that is willing to take my money in exchange for delivering a network feed but piss-off about what I do with that network feed on my side of the wall socket.. that’s the carrier I’d happily give my money too.
What difference does it make if the app downloading data is running on the phone or on a bluetooth’d device under my phone. If I’m paying for “unlimited”.. they can piss off. If I’ve agreeded at time of subscription that I’m paying for “unlimited with a speed decrease at a specific cap”.. fine.. slow my transfer rate and piss off.
This nickle and diming from the carriers is long past unacceptable.