Re: [Fed-Talk] Two Iphone Email Questions
Re: [Fed-Talk] Two Iphone Email Questions
- Subject: Re: [Fed-Talk] Two Iphone Email Questions
- From: Dave Schroeder <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 16:03:41 -0500
On Sep 11, 2009, at 3:40 PM, Pike, Michael (IHS/NPA) wrote:
I beg to differ... the iPhone Configuration Utility is how it was
accomplished, and that is supported by Apple...
...via an unsupported use of the mobile provisioning process, proven
by the fact it's been disabled in 3.1.
ATT says I have unlimited data on my iPhone... i'm not a bandwidth
pig, like I said we did it for testing.
AT&T says you have unlimited data, because they expect it NOT to be
able to be used for tethering. That's why tethering plans cost on the
order of $40/mo more.
Trust me, there is NO WAY under 3.0 or 3.01 ATT can tell if you are
surfing through the iPhone or a tether. I could get into specifics
as to why, but I won't... but on that note, 3.1 changed that.
I actually don't care whether AT&T could tell whether you are surfing
tethered, and frankly, it's doesn't matter. For the record, I agree
that AT&T would almost certainly never find out.
However, it is still against the AT&T terms of service, because the
terms don't allow you to do anything that is technically able to be
accomplished with the phone.
Additionally, deep packet inspection or even a cursory examination of
traffic would easily show that you are not using iPhone applications,
and there is a tethering flag for data use. Even still, I agree that
AT&T would never notice unless you are abusive (>5GB month).
You can even take an ATT wireless network card, put your iPhone sim
card in it and surf through a mobile connection card... ATT makes no
changes from the iPhone to their regular remote APN.
Understand completely...but again, this is a shortcoming, and it's
because AT&T makes assumptions about where and how the SIM will be
used. You can also pop out your iPhone SIM, put it in another AT&T
phone that supports MMS, enable MMS on your account, put it back in an
iPhone running iPhone OS 3.x or newer, and voila, MMS. But that is
also not supported by AT&T, and it's because AT&T wasn't ready for the
huge amount of MMS traffic that iPhone users will generate (again,
disproportionate to other phone users).
I agree all of these things are technically possible, and have tested
many of the various modes of iPhone tethering; but the point still
stands that it is unsupported by Apple and AT&T and violates AT&T's
terms of service.
I have four iphones like I said.. this one will stay 3.01 forever
unless ATT offers something comparable.
They likely will when the network is capable, and the tethering plan
will probably cost an additional $40/mo. Whether this is unreasonable
or not, the money goes, overall, to subsidize network buildouts to
support the data increases that WILL occur when people use data
services via their laptops.
Again, I completely understand with the appeal of tethering...but
since this is a mailing list catering to federal government users, I
thought it would be prudent to point out the other issues involved here.
- Dave
_______________________________________________
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
Fed-talk mailing list (email@hidden)
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
This email sent to email@hidden