Sprint Changes Smartphone, Tablet Tethering Pricing $30, 5GB Plan Eliminated, New $20 & $50 Plans Unveiled Sprint has announced that the company is changing their phone-as-hotspot tethering pricing for smartphone and tablet customers. The company says they'll no longer offer their $30 per month, 5GB hotspot plan, but existing users on this plan will be grandfathered. As of last Friday, Sprint says they're now offering users who want to use their devices as a hotspot two options: •$19.99/per month for 2 GB of combined 3G/4G on-network data •$49.99/per month for 6 GB of combined 3G/4G on-network data. The company says they'll also be upgrading the tools available to help users to track their usage: Sprint now will be able to notify customers with a MHS add-on when they reach 75, 90 and 100 percent of their on-network monthly data limit. Sprint provides data usage notifications to help customers to proactively manage their MHS usage and adjust usage to avoid high overage charges. Customers must enroll to receive usage notifications. At 100 percent of their on-network monthly data allowance, customers will receive a notification with the option to suspend on-network mobile hotspot usage or continue to use it and pay the overage charges. If the customer chooses to accept overage charges, they will continue to receive notifications at 20 percent increments above the monthly data allowance. Sprint's clearly hoping that they can increase user adoption of their mobile hotspot service, their entry level plan now $10 cheaper -- albeit with a significantly smaller usage allowance.
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  vpokoPremium
join:2003-07-03
Boston, MA | PDANet PDANet, that is all. | |
|  | | | Re: PDANet Or tetherme which is only $5. | |
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| | What? The company says they're no longer offering they'll no longer offer ithe company's $30 per month, 5GB hotspot plan, but existing users on this plan will be grandfathered.
What? | |
| |  CheesePremium
join:2003-10-26
Naples, FL
kudos:1 | Re: What? Not sure what's hard to understand, the current users under this plan, won't be affected by the change. Pretty easy to understand if I do say so myself. | |
| | | | Another error in grammar. Happens way too frequently these days. It happens a little more on Cnet... 8-) | |
| | | | said by Onedollar:The company says they're no longer offering they'll no longer offer ithe company's $30 per month, 5GB hotspot plan, but existing users on this plan will be grandfathered.
What?
With you on that one. Read it a few times, and think there is a missing word or 3 in there, lol. | |
| | |  djrobx
join:2000-05-31
Valencia, CA
kudos:1 | Re: What? I think there's 4 redundant words.  | |
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 tuarisYou Clicked on the Apple
join:2001-10-19
Naples, FL | Doesn't matter A custom ROM for Android makes this unnecessary. | |
| | | Their data is a joke Had to get an ATT mifi to use data, and to think we pay a $10 premium data fee (5 x $10 = $50). Looking for a new carrier when our contract is up... | |
| |  n2jtx
join:2001-01-13
Glen Head, NY | Re: Their data is a joke How true! I don't even use the data service on my 4S because the speed is so lousy. I should pay $19.95/mo more for even lousier service?
I just saw our corporate bill and on the page for my phone the data usage field is blank. No one even noticed.
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I support the right to keep and arm bears. | |
| | | | | Re: Their data is a joke That's awful. I am not looking for stellar speeds. If I got 300k-500k, I would be satisfied. But we are talking 30k, and 800ms pings. 2g is even faster than that! I can't even perform a google search on a mobile device without it taking over a minute.... So I thought maybe it was just my little town I live in. We live about 50 miles from Raleigh, NC, where there is WiMax. If we go out there, 3g is horrible. Oddly enough though 4g/Wimax works fine when you are able to maintain a signal. | |
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 EricthornIt only hurts when I laughPremium
join:2001-08-10
Paragould, AR | Data and Pricing The price points are still ridiculous. I'd sign up in a heartbeat for 10$ for a 5gb plan, and that's with Sprint's completely craptacuar speed where I live, and I'll probably never see LTE here. Data pricing is what stops me from getting a tablet in the first place. Sure, I could tether it, custom rom it, (obvioulsy wifi when able) etc., but I'd really like to stay legit and just have my data on the go whenever I want at a reasonable price. I already have an unlimited data plan with my EVO. What is the f*cking difference if I used 2-3gb more with a tablet? Nothing of course, except it's potentially 20-50$ they will lose out on.
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Ever try stuffing a melted marshmallow up a wildcat's ass? It can be done, but you have to like your job. - This Is The Way The World Ends by James Morrow - Join a DC club, it can't hurt you! | |
|  B52GUNRKM 7D love and D3 NirvanaPremium,MVM
join:2001-03-06
Vallejo, CA | Sprint hotspot is now even more useless When it went from unlimited to 5GB I cancelled the hotspot and installed PDANet. Sprint currently has the highest per overage cost of any carrier and their 4G service is very limited in scope and who knows how long the LTE roll out will take.
Sprint charges $.05 per megabyte overages, which means a GB over will be $50 (remember, networking uses true kilo, not binary 1024), even Verizon only charges $10 per gigabyte over the 5. Sure, you get an extra gig with Sprint but their overage is ridiculous. I was going to cancel my Verizon LTE mifi hotspot, but until I know where LTE ends up being deployed in the SF Bay Area, I'm going to keep it as some apps that use streaming on Android don't work on the Sprint network so to use them on the phone, I have to use the over WiFi at home or on the VzW LTE mifi.
What's even more sad is that they, as of today, can't differentiate phone data from mobile hotspot data, so if you do add MHS to your plan, you're effectively limiting your plan to 5 gigs on your phone as well.
Good going, Sprint!
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Some assembly required, your mileage may vary, no pixels were harmed in the writing of this post. Brain cells, though, are a different matter. You want fries with that? | |
| | |  Why do people pay for tethering?
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| | | | | | | | | | | Re: Why do people pay for tethering? U can burn more in one day just by using smartphone with pandora or YouTube clips than tethering to see tablet or desktop websites, commet on forums or view picture albums. | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO
1 edit | Re: Why do people pay for tethering? Even with caps, the mobile carriers must have data that tells them most non-tethered users don't hit their cap. Even though most plans give you roughly a GB for every $10, if you pay $50 for a 5GB plan and you consistently only use 3GB, that's a win for the mobile carrier. If they let you tether for free and 3GB suddenly becomes 4GB or the 5GB limit, that's a loss for the carrier.
I don't agree with paying extra for tethering. I'm just speculating about why carrier's charge for tethering.
For the record, I have an iPhone and I pay for tethering. I love using my phone as a hot spot but I don't like paying for the privilege. However, I won't jail break my phone in an attempt to go around the carrier. With corporate discount, it only cost me $15/month more. While that's not a trivial amount, it's not enough to risk being caught and having to deal with whatever consequences the carrier might decide to level. | |
| | | | | | | | |  NetFixerFrom my cold dead handsPremium
join:2004-06-24
The Boro
 ·Comcast Business..
 ·Vonage
 ·Cingular Wireless
·Comcast
| Re: Why do people pay for tethering? said by rradina:Even with caps, the mobile carriers must have data that tells them most non-tethered users don't hit their cap. Even though most plans give you roughly a GB for every $10, if you pay $50 for a 5GB plan and you consistently only use 3GB, that's a win for the mobile carrier. If they let you tether for free and 3GB suddenly becomes 4GB or the 5GB limit, that's a loss for the carrier.
I don't agree with paying extra for tethering. I'm just speculating about why carrier's charge for tethering.
For the record, I have an iPhone and I pay for tethering. I love using my phone as a hot spot but I don't like paying for the privilege. However, I won't jail break my phone in an attempt to go around the carrier. With corporate discount, it only cost me $15/month more. While that's not a trivial amount, it's not enough to risk being caught and having to deal with whatever consequences the carrier might decide to level.
I suspect that the primary reason is an assumption by the carrier's bean counters that anyone tethering might be sharing that connection with others. Without the tethering, those other users would need to have their own cell phone data plan. Of course, such sharing could be easily be detected by packet inspection and dealt with according to whatever rules there might be in the plan's TOS, but simply declaring that tethering requires an extra fee (and disabling it in popular phones) is easier to implement.
Fortunately (for some of us), that rule is not universally applied to all cell phones/plans by all carriers (but you do have to pick your cell phone and your carrier carefully, and the popular/trendy phones are not going to be exempt from the tethering ban).
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We can never have enough of nature.
We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander. | |
| | | | | | | | | | Reviews:
 ·AT&T U-Verse
·Mediacom
·T-Mobile US
1 edit | Re: Why do people pay for tethering? said by NetFixer:Fortunately (for some of us), that rule is not universally applied to all cell phones/plans by all carriers (but you do have to pick your cell phone and your carrier carefully, and the popular/trendy phones are not going to be exempt from the tethering ban).
I think at the highest risk of target are those who are still on unlimited plans and use a lot of data. If you only use it sometimes and use tether apps (like pdanet) that have option to mask tethering then you're fine. Also if you use tablet instead laptop when you tether then all the carrier see is you use mobile agent.
I also remember according to their website, it is against their TOS to use their personal data plans to connect to corporate networks. I have used it a lot when I was on call shifts or working away from my apartment and never had a problem with it. I connect to my company's intranet using customized AT&T IPSec VPN client (at&t global network client) through at&t managed vpn. I had tethering personal plan 4gb for $45 but did not have to enroll into enterprise that cost extra $20. | |
| | | | | | | | | | rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO | Re: Why do people pay for tethering? If tethering is tough to swallow, the personal vs. enterprise data plan is a line in the sand that's ridiculous. If the plan was unlimited, perhaps I can see why they care. An enterprise user might use significantly more and if they do, they are probably doing it for the company, the company is likely paying for it and therefore the company can pay more for that privilege.
However, with capped plans, it no longer makes any sense unless as I said earlier about tethering, perhaps the thought is the enterprise user would get closer to the 5GB cap than the personal user.
Regardless, this is kind of a lousy way to run a network...making folks pay for a certain amount of data and then statistically count on most to never to use all of it.
I would think mobile carriers have the same challenge as wired ISPs in that it isn't necessarily how much you use but the intersection of when and how much. If use a lot during peak periods, that's what kills them. | |
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| | | | |  quetwoThat VoIP GuyPremium
join:2004-09-04
East Lansing, MI | Why? Because you signed away the right to tether using your cell phone when you signed that 60 page Terms of Service agreement to get your cell phone plan activated.
Pretty clearly in my plan it states that "Data Service is only to be used on the device listed on this contract. Providing data services to other devices (HotSpot Sharing, Tethering, etc), requires an additional plan." | |
| | | | | Re: Why do people pay for tethering? said by quetwo:Why? Because you signed away the right to tether using your cell phone when you signed that 60 page Terms of Service agreement to get your cell phone plan activated.
Pretty clearly in my plan it states that "Data Service is only to be used on the device listed on this contract. Providing data services to other devices (HotSpot Sharing, Tethering, etc), requires an additional plan."
But the day they started charging me extra for "premium data" ontop of my current dataplan just by upgrading my phone from one android to another was the day I said fine, I'll use my "data" anyway I want and Sprint can always cancel my contract. Oh wait, I'm not on a contract so I'll just keep on teathering.  | |
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| | Done it was only a matter of time until they started changing their plans and packages. Next will be the unlimited data on all phones. And they know they can get away with it.
And Sprint should define grandfathered- does that mean you take an upgrade promo and you lose the unlimited? Most likely. | |
| pkorx8
join:2003-06-19
San Francisco, CA Reviews:
·Comcast
 ·SONIC.NET
| LTE EVO 4G On a similar note, I don't know how Sprint can release the HTC EVO 4G LTE in the next few days without a deployed LTE network.
All its going to do is piss off any new customers because they'll be stuck on the dismal sprint 3G network, and they will return within the 14 or 30day trial period.
In the meantime, I'll stick with my Wimax "OG" EVO 4G which has blazing speeds where I'm mostly at because there's no one else on it! | |
|  IowaCowboyWant to go back to IowaPremium
join:2010-10-16
Springfield, MA
·Comcast
·Verizon Broadban..
| 2GB is enough for me I have a Verizon iPhone and I decided to ditch the MiFi (since I rarely used it and I decided to just use the tethering feature on my iPhone instead. Yes I had to give up 4G but it looks like an LTE iPhone is in the works. I have unlimited data on my iPhone but Verizon let me add the 2GB mobile hotspot feature to my phone anyways even though they no longer offer unlimited data.
I use about about 95 MB on the smartphone side and 240 MB on the MiFi side each month (these are the figures from my billing cycle that closes today). So having unlimited data on the iPhone Side and 2GB on the tethering side works for me. And it's $30 cheaper than having the separate mobile broadband card. | |
| | rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO | Re: 2GB is enough for me Wow. That's really low data usage. Either that or Verizon's meter is measuring low or AT&T's meter measures high. I use about 1GB on my iPhone each month and about 2GB tethering. I have AT&T's 4GB tethering plan (now defunct) so my plan fits my needs.
However, I still think your data usage seems low (or, as I said, mine seems high!) | |
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Reviews:
·ooma
·Optimum Online
·Verizon FiOS
| stop being gouged.. data plans should be unlimited..
consumers should stop buying them until ALL carriers become reasonable..
let me tell you about an old tale I've heard..
it's about customs in Japan of old... way back when.. the country imported many products (heavily after WWII through the 1980s)-- you could easily exchange Japan for China or other countries which have a trade defiicit with the USA. and the point of the story is.. when perishable food imports such as lettuce were held at customs they'd sit there and rot until whatever import restrictions were satisfied.. if they stayed there too long, they were worthless and had to be discarded.. well, my nieve friends and iphone lemmings, this is what could happen to the FCC auctioned spectrum should consumers choose to sit on their hands for all this price gouged data they've invested MILLIONS in upgrading to 3g, 4g, lte, etc.. | |
| | | FoxFi PDANet works fine, but they partner w/ FoxFi for their wi-fi hotspot capability...
»play.google.com/store/apps/detai···v_result
Not avail on Sprint, but if you click 'Read more' you find the developer notes this and points you to their website for the .apk
»foxfi.com/bin/
Great app! Works beautifully on my Sprint Galaxy Nexus | |
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