For all of you feeling guilty for teathering your phone on the $15 power vision plan ( or just plain nervous the Sprint is going to catch you)
Sprint is now offering an Unlimited phone as a modem plan for $39.99 per month with a 2 year contract. I saw it first on sprintusers.com and called in and verified it myself
This seems like a fair deal.

Mike Smith

Are we not supposed to be using our PPCs as tethers? If I'm already paying for unlimited data plan, isnt that a redundant plan?

I agree. Unlimited is unlimited. I'm sure there are people who will take advantage of this and use it as their broadband home connection but for those of us who use it when we aren't at a WiFi hotspot, home, or other location it is just garbage. Casual, or even semi-frequent tethering, should not be billed differently. Besides, if you're coming from a true broadband environment EV-DO is not comparable when downloading large files.

Agree with it or not the $15 a month Power Visiom plan specifically forbids teathering. Also, all of the new EDVO phones with the reported exception of the 6700 can track teathered usage.

Mike Smith

I realize it is prohibited. However, they shouldn't include the tools on the software to use as a tethered device unless it can/ should be used that way. Between the tethering charges and the ridiculous pricing for SMS Sprint is getting damn greedy.

I do not fault Sprint for offering teathering as an option, and thier plans for the most part are extremely competitive and fairly priced. The market has dictated that connection card data pricing is at $80 per month for unlimited data ( I paid that for the 1x data for over 2 years). Here they are giving an option to have unlimited handset and teathered data at $40 with any voice plan, effectively dropping the price consideralbly. If all you want to use is the handset data it is only $15 a month for EDVO speeds. Their primary competitors cheapest data plan is $39.99 with no official ok to teather and with streaming services said to be forbidden. Sprints voice plans are also better priced with much fairer overage pricing.
Sure everyone who was used to SMS being included with Vision is feeling ripped off, but if you look at the alternative, Sprint is a good deal.

Mike Smith

While on the whole Sprint is a good deal -- at least for me. I have 1300 AT minutes, Unlimited PCS-PCS, Unlimited N/W@7PM, PV, 500 SMS for $65/ month before discounts.

That being said, I still think pricing for EV-DO and SMS is crap. If my ISP can provide email at no additional charge why should my wireless provider charge $15/ month for unlimited texting. I guarantee I send a gigabyte or more per month through email and don't get hammered on pricing for that. I have an FTP server to share videos/ pictures, etc. with family and I don't get charged extra for that.

No way am I paying for tethering unless it is an absolute necessity for business use.

So, I guess at the end of the day we just don't see eye-to-eye on tethering.

This leads me to think why they make street cars that can go 150mph. Better yet, why make cars capable of anything beyond 75/80mph?

Anyone tried to add this who's on a SERO plan?

once again - i will argue that this whole point should be void!!

i can use just as much, if not more, bandwidth on my phone as i can with tethering! if i run ORB on my phone all day long watching live TV, i'm gonna use a TON of bandwidth - much more than if i were tethering and doing casual use - there's no reason anymore to say that tethering is a different way of using your data plan because you can use just as much data either way.

geez. gonna take forever to get sprint to agree to this though.

-jeff

__________________
AT&T Tilt aka HTC Kaiser aka TyTn II
PPC 6700 is now my TV remote control and favorite paperweight lol

1. I am sure they are trying to preserve thier business revenue as much as possible.
2. With the implementation of this plan they may in the future decide not to offer the $15 a month plan to PDA users, which is technically part of thier written policy now.
3. If their Sprint TV service is not profitable they may do something like Verizon and start prohibiting streaming services at least on the $15 per month plans.
4. They may start enforcing thier using excessive band width detrimental to the network clause and dropping people who are using too much.

The fact is no one should be expecting a wireless broadband plan to be providing them with gigabytes worth of data at $15 a month, it is below what most slow dial up providers charge.

You are right there is no difference in what the data is used for, but I am sure Sprint is trying to find a simple way to appropriately charge for a certain level of service, this may not be the answer and if it is not we may see them attempt to tackle it in an even less favorable way.

Mike Smith

I'm not at all an expert at this - but here's my question/concern. I've been using an I500 for years and love the device. Occassionally when out of town I will use it as a modem with my notebook (is that what is called tethering?) when there is no wifi available - mostly for email and perhaps tapping into an airline website - I can't imagine I'm using much bandwidth. My PCS Vison which allows me do do this is $10 per month. Now, I'm thinking about upgrading to a Sprint Treo. Do I lose this modem capability for $10 a month? If so, is it going to going to cost me a minimum of $39.95? What are my options?

Thanks.

Jack

The bottom line here is "Don't advertise unlimited data, if you're going to put limits on it". It's false advertising.

Ya sprint is a bunch of liars when it comes to what they call "unlimited bandwdith". If you read the very fine print in the mile long contract, you'll see that they can turn you off for using too much bandwidth...and when they say "unlimited" ... what they REALLY mean is 'unlimited' ...as long as you don't go over about 5gig a month. Bascily, if you're using a whole lot of bandwidth, they flag yer account.
I've had plenty of dealings with these jerks about this - I always get them to turn it back on..

To outrun the raptors.