Like others carriers including Verizon, AT&T charges a $20/month rate to enable tethering your mobile phone to any of your other devices. To avoid this charge many AT&T iPhone and Android 2.2 users have worked around this by jailbreaking (iOS) or rooting (Android) their phone to add applications that let them tether at no additional charge.
AT&T has started sending out an unambiguous message this week: they know about it, and they want it to stop.
Strongly worded messages have started going out to their customers who use unauthorized tethering, telling them that they can either stop tethering, or upgrade to a $45/month DataPro 4GB plan ($25 for data, $20 for tethering). If offending customers don't respond in time, well, there will be consequences:
If we don't hear from you, we'll plan to automatically enroll you into DataPro 4GB afterMarch 27, 2011. The new plan - whether you sign up on your own or we automatically enroll you - will replace your current smartphone data plan, including if you are on an unlimited data plan. If you discontinue tethering, no changes to your current plan will be required.
via Gizmodo
