Android tethering app tossed

Misplaced greed

Beats me why why do this though. Sure, they're taking the attitude of why sell just one contract when two will rake in double the tied-in profit. But why not play along, show some sustainability credentials by not issuing unnecessary hardware, and officially allow such tethering for a modest fee, perhaps with a throughput cap if really necessary to protect their network bandwidth?

hmm

ive been saying this all along and this highlights the major problems with android. Sure it maybe an open sauce OS but it has very limited ways of getting apps installed on it. If the operator doesnt like it then it will be no better than an iphone -i.e. you need to hack it.

Personally I will stick to my clunky WM omnia which (btw) is happily using network connection sharing.

Too bad the OpenMoko hardware sucks so bad

Nothing to add to the title, really. If the OpenMoko handsets had either a real keyboard or a camera - or ideally both - they might actually be useful for something, certainly as obvious competitors to the usual fare, which, for many users' desired functionality, need to be hacked. So sad.

but....

i thought the Android platform was going to be such a utopia where phone users were able to use their phones in just the way they wanted, free from the shakles of zealous app store management and network demands?

it seems like as more time passes, the more and more like the iPhone (in the restrictions) Android gets

what's that i hear? the drawing in of breath from all the Pre-lovers about to tell us how much better it will be when/if their beloved device ever actually appears in the shops?

Why?

Why should it matter? They have a data volume cap, so if you blow it in a couple of hours from a tethered laptop, why should they care?

Am confused

Now I actually work for t-Mobile here in the UK, and can confirm that when a contract is connected to the network with a G1 it is put onto the Web 'n' Walk Plus plan as standard, which is normally an extra £7.50 per month. This plan allows you to use your mobile as a tethered modem for your computer, as long as no VOIP programs are used. The reason this is added is simply because the 1GB allowance from standard web n' walk is not enough for a device that is always connected to the internet, and whilst there are no run-on rates on T-Mobile in the UK there is throttling.

Now what confuses me is that there has been no internal comment on the ability to tether your phone to your laptop for this, even though the company is theoretically £7.50 out of pocket each month (More, as web 'n' walk is currently free on the Flext plans) I'd hardly be surprised if T-Mobile had decided to crack down, but there's nothing about it internally at present., at least not in the UK.

A more likely cause is either T-Mobile US has thrown its toys out of the pram, but I am leaning towards this being linked to the 'G2' and Vodafone. Their unlimited internet plans do not allow tethering, and I assume they are unlikely to change this. Believe me, T-Mobile are all over the idea of tethering at the moment and would almost certainly be happy to allow it for a small fee, as it essentially pure profit.

Anonymous, for very obvious reasons...

T-Mobile Uk G1 data tariff always proscribed tethering

The variant of data tariff that T-Mobile Uk specifically supplies with the Android G1 has excluded the use of handset as modem [or the associated contract sim in a usb modem stick] since the launch of the device.

Removing any tethering apps from the store is the logical pursuit of their prohibition.

Re: but....

They can. Downloading from somewhere other than the marketplace is trivial.. a link on a webpage is enough. No hacking required.

Not that the marketplace is particularly limited.. there's an app to download hacked firmware, for example. Google don't really care what you do with the phone generally.

There's nothing like the iphone level of restrictions in there.

Hm.

While I appreciate a good, heartfelt rant - and Ryan's was excellent! - I need to correct a misunderstanding.

While the Android Market is a bloody convenient way to buy apps, unlike the Apple appstore, you're not locked into it. There are other 'appstore' websites out there, including Handango's AndroidGear one, among others. There are also 3rd-party developers posting apps for download because they don't want to spend the £25 fee to register for the Android Market and also commercial developers selling via their corporate sites.

There are many subjective arguments to be made in the WinMob versus Android debate, but the ringfencing one isn't really one of them.

And of course as pointed out above, this makes Google's move a little ineffective (perhaps intentionally?) - especially as there is an app out there that allows tethering without needing root access - free, and written by an established company, which the Android Market has never seen.

Actually, while I'm posting anyway:

David John Walsh makes a better point above than he realises: Not only do T-mobile UK offer a 'Web and Walk Plus' package which actively allows tethering (excluding Voice data traffic) but when I got my G1, I was told that T-mobile were *requiring* G1 users to sign-up to Web and Walk Plus because the pushed data and anticipated higher data use required WaW+'s 3GB per month data cap (instead of vanilla WaW's 1GB limit - but not to worry as Web and Walk plus was already included in the monthly tarriff pack for the G1!

Perhaps that's worthy of follow-up by El Reg - T-mobile (U.S?) Pushes Google to ban a tethering app from its market despite the fact that every T-Moble G1 user in the UK (*) is allowed to tether perfectly legitimately by the terms of their, er, T-Mobile contract!

Certainly sounds like an own goal to me, especially as Google's Android HQ is in London.

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(* - Yeah, I know - all 10 of us... )

I've got an XDA

Provided by O2, customised by O2 with their app, (i.e when I reset the device all the customisation comes back and the little O2 apps).

my phone has an application installed from new called modem link that lets me connect my phone to my computer as a USB modem.

So here is my strange predicament.

o2 let me do it, they provided the app to let me do it, they provide unlimited data so that it's worth doing it...

but now they are suggesting that I can't do it? (I know this related to t-mobile but I'm thinking about the iPhone tethering conundrum as well).