Unauthorized Tethering Warnings: Is AT&T's Bark Bigger Than Their Bite?

Following the spreading word of AT&T cracking down on unauthorized data tethering usage, many cried foul on the company's actions. The big question; is AT&T in the right? The simple answer to that question is they are. This is clearly one of those examples where agreeing to terms, conditions, guidelines, etc without reading them in entirety may come back to bite you in the arse. As with most times, the fine print has AT&T's butt covered. Much of what I will be covering can be found in AT&T's Wireless Customer Agreement. Before we get into that, however, I'll refer you to a small portion of AT&T's Acceptable Use Policy.

AT&T prohibits use of the IP Services in any way that is unlawful, harmful to or interferes with use of AT&T's network or systems, or the network of any other provider, interferes with the use or enjoyment of services received by others, infringes intellectual property rights, results in the publication of threatening or offensive material, or constitutes Spam/E-mail/Usenet abuse, a security risk or a violation of privacy.

AT&T could probably argue to a successful degree that your unauthorized data usage, especially if in large amounts, be considered "harmful to or interferes with use of AT&T's network or systems, or the network of any other provider, interferes with the use or enjoyment of services received by others," Back to the Wireless Customer Agreement terms of use. AT&T answers the earlier question vaguely in a legal manner. Can AT&T Change My Terms And Rates?

We may change any terms, conditions, rates, fees, expenses, or charges regarding your Services at any time. We will provide you with notice of material changes (other than changes to governmental fees, proportional charges for governmental mandates, roaming rates or administrative charges) either in your monthly bill or separately. You understand and agree that State and Federal Universal Service Fees and other governmentally imposed fees, whether or not assessed directly upon you, may be increased based upon the government's or our calculations. IF WE INCREASE THE PRICE OF ANY OF THE SERVICES TO WHICH YOU SUBSCRIBE, BEYOND THE LIMITS SET FORTH IN YOUR CUSTOMER SERVICE SUMMARY, OR IF WE MATERIALLY DECREASE THE GEOGRAPHICAL AREA IN WHICH YOUR AIRTIME RATE APPLIES (OTHER THAN A TEMPORARY DECREASE FOR REPAIRS OR MAINTENANCE), WE'LL DISCLOSE THE CHANGE AT LEAST ONE BILLING CYCLE IN ADVANCE (EITHER THROUGH A NOTICE WITH YOUR BILL, A TEXT MESSAGE TO YOUR DEVICE, OR OTHERWISE), AND YOU MAY TERMINATE THIS AGREEMENT WITHOUT PAYING AN EARLY TERMINATION FEE OR RETURNING OR PAYING FOR ANY PROMOTIONAL ITEMS, PROVIDED YOUR NOTICE OF TERMINATION IS DELIVERED TO US WITHIN THIRTY (30) DAYS AFTER THE FIRST BILL REFLECTING THE CHANGE.

Put simply, yes they can. The SMS message or email customers are receiving is the required prior notice. As stated, upset customers can likely end their contract before fulfillment without the necessity to pay an early termination fee because AT&T is modifying the original terms in a way that would impact the customer negatively -- higher rates. This isn't even a certainty as it could be argued the customer violated the agreement first. What Are the General Terms that Apply to All AT&T DataPlus/AT&T DataPro?

Data Services sold for use with AT&T RIM BlackBerry devices, and SMARTPHONEs may not be used with other devices, including but not limited to, personal computers, PC Data Cards and the like, either by tethering devices together, by SIM card transfer or any other means.

Perhaps without paying attention, but you agreed not to use any other devices on AT&T's network that were not part of your contract. For those, like me, who retained the unlimited plan; I'm sure there's a way to track back and prove that we were grandfathered into these terms. The next topic of interest: How does a carrier know I'm using another device? I'm not a telecommunications expert, nor experienced in the field of cellular operations. However, I have a few possibilities on how AT&T and other carriers could tell if you're attempting to circumvent their boundary control. We know it is possible since carriers have blocked tethering way before the iPhone was ever released, and even Verizon's Personal Hotspot plan has separate data pools for the iPhone and tethered devices. One guess is that the personal hotspot software in smartphones needs or otherwise is designed to signal carriers where the data requests are originating from, the smartphone or a connected device. Not impossible, but not likely. This would require all OS developers to have done such a feature since the beginning of cellular tethering. That just doesn't seem that probable to me. Another theory is port monitoring. Applications use different IP ports to communicate, like lanes on a highway. Carriers could monitor for data that is being shared on ports that a smartphone could not possibly support. Some examples would be peer-to-peer network transfers like Bittorent, Limewire, etc. This would imply that the user is accessing the network with a personal computer. However, that's not extremely reliable and wouldn't catch those that just surf the web, send and receive email, or devices like iPads and iPod touchs. My own hunch involves TCP/IP packet header information investigation and monitoring. The TCP/IP is quite complex, because it is used to do so many things involved with data transmission. Where this is important to our current subject is routing. Apple's Personal Hotspot is likely extremely identical to the operation of a wireless router, using network address translation and port translation to allow attached devices access to the Internet using a single public IP address. In order for NAT to work, the routing devices (access host) needs to modify packets before they are sent. Basically, it needs a tracking and mapping system to successfully route incoming packets to the proper devices. This tagging process isn't blatantly obvious, but can be detected when continuously monitoring the right attributes. This would relate to port monitoring, just with a different focus. In addition, a network technician could also look at things such as the time to live identifier. All that I'm trying to point out is claiming "bull" on things you don't understand, dislike, or chose to be ignorant about doesn't make it so. With all of that said, I do have my own gripes about AT&T's tethering policy. Once I heard about the Personal Hotspot feature, I was intrigued. I don't use a lot of data beyond my home Wi-Fi network, but that's not to say I don't access the Internet at all on the go. I choose to maintain AT&T's unlimited data plan, even though my use would be well within the DataPro margin. AT&T requires users to have the $25 DataPro plan for tethering, and then requires the $20 tethering option as well. The DataPro plan offers 2GB of data transfer per month, plus the 2GB allowance on the tethering option. An additional charge would make sense for those using unlimited plans, but doesn't make a huge difference for capped plans -- outside of greed. To clarify my opinion that it's simply up-front greed, both of these options have a $10 charge for each gigabyte overage. Therefore, if I transfer 4GB of data in a month on the DataPro plan without the tethering option, I still end up paying $45. My request is the same as many others; offer the tethering option for free and let me choose how much data I use. Cellular providers in some other countries already offer such a feature, and for a logical reason.

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