Hi, posting late here.
Of course I'm aware of the contract terms. On rare occasions, when tethering is my only option for internet access on my laptop, I choose to ignore those terms (i.e. I have no other internet connection available on a job site for several days at a time and for 20+ days in a month). But it's simply a fact: Data is data. That Verizon wants to take advantage of the fog of technology to rip off many of it's own, unsuspecting and loyal customers, by somehow pretending that data isn't data, is sadly reprehensible. Unfortunately, the same insane, *reality avoiding and/or denying* culture is far too common these days and it's more widespread.
Fortunately, we have outlets for real facts about mobile technology via this web site, xda, and others and we don't have to live in a Big Red or Blue Fog. Every time I'm in a Verizon store, I get really ticked off at the outright lies and b.s. that almost every sales person is spouting, obviously taking advantage of the wide eyed, inexperienced customers, who are overwhelmed by the avalanche of new mobile technology. Yes, I'm not following the letter of my contract: I can think for myself and take responsibility for my decisions and actions and I'm very comfortable with both. BTW, have you EVER intentionally broken or worked around a loophole in a contract or EVER broken a law? Of course you have and I hazard a guess that you felt at ease with that as well.
I am paying for UNLIMITED data. That's in my contract too. If I use more than they like, Verizon throttles the data flow down and I'm OK that (though come to think of it, I don't think the throttling was in my contract?). So it's a fair deal in my book. I ignore the moronic attempts by Verizon to pretend that tethered data is magically different and I let them make up and implement new TOS rules outside of my contract. Feels to me like a fair deal. I might even call it: honor among thieves (me & Verizon).
Oh, and during one very busy month on that work site, I had to tether almost every day and I used...22 GB on my data plan! Yup, 22gb. I admit, I had no idea it had gone that high and when I check with about 5 days to go in my billing cycle I thought for sure that Verizon was going to sweep down from the sky, take my phone and throw me in some kind of data prison, after handing me a $10,000 bill of course. But...not a peep. Not one word from Verizon. Data got slow for the last week or so but popped right back up the next month. That turned out to be a one time anomaly but I was impressed, Big Red kept to their word on that one.
BTW, with Verizon's new tiered smartphone data plan, for the same $30, instead of unlimited data, you get 2gb (this the required minimum for all smartphones, they removed the $15 for 150mb option). They also offer $50 for 5 gb and $80 for 10 gb data plans. All smartphones pay $10 per extra 1 gb over their plan (and wanna bet how fast they round that up ;-)). At my current cost of $30 month, that 22 gb month would have cost me $230 (2gb = $30, 20 gb x $10 per gb). Is is just me or did seem like Verizon was being more reasonable for a year or so but now their reverting to their old *&6%^% ways? Well, maybe I shouldn't judge them so harshly: maybe if I ran a company where I could make a few usage and billing changes that turned on the extra money tap like that, it would be pretty darn tempting indeed
!
