Why not to USB/Hotspot Tether your MetroPCS Android Phone(s)

Kaiser17 said:

I originally posted this in the Samsung Galaxy Indulge forum but I decided to share it here to.

This is just a guide I decided to write to warn those of you who Tether your MetroPCS phones and I know there are alot of you out there. Your Android phone is yours to begin with. Do whatever you want with it.. such as root it, flash roms on it, whatever to get a better, richer experience on it as Android is open source and you should be allowed to use your phone to its full potential.
MetroPCS cant do anything about you rooting and modifying your phone, the only thing they can do is void your warranty, but all you need to do is just flash the stock rom back on it and your all safe if your in a situation where you need to take the phone back to them.

Now to begin with the main part, DO NOT use Tethering apps that allow you to use your phone's internet connection on other devices because your MetroPCS account can be easily terminated if they find out, and there has been many cases where customers have had their MetroPCS service cancelled due to MetroPCS finding out about them tethering their phones. Look no further, its right in their terms which im sure 99% of you never looked at:

MetroPCS | MetroWEB | Terms of Use

Not only do they cancel your service, your phone's ESN gets blacklisted so it is unable to be used again on the MetroPCS network. So say you try to sell your phone to someone, that person wont be able to activate the phone on MetroPCS and people usually steer clear of phones with bad ESN's unless they knowingly buy it with a bad ESN.

Tethering your phone is really not worth it, just get a cheap Internet connection. If you can afford an Android phone and pay $50+ monthly on your phone plan(s) than im sure you have enough money in your wallet to pay for a cheap Internet Connection. Of course you don't have to listen to anything I have said just remember that this does happen and I made this Article to make you all aware of it. Feel free to share this article but please give me credit and linkback to this thread.

Click to expand...

Frisco said:

I admit that we're struggling with this a bit in Moderator Central. Our venerable Admin, Phases, wants us to look at individual posts/threads carefully, with an eye toward obvious violation such as a link to instructions with something like, "how to bypass Verizon's data fee," etc.

Most of these tethering threads are a tough call, and I also admit to mulling over these posts and allowing a lot more than when this stuff first came up.

I'd not worry about it.. again, the main thing is the obvious. If we slip, allowing something that should not be allowed, we'll talk about it. I keep posting these warnings mostly as a way to have members stay away from a sort of freewheeling "let's figure out how to screw Verizon (Sprint, etc)" spiel.

Click to expand...

Kaiser17 said:

In the first post I linked to the Terms, I and posted a screenshot to backup my claims. The whole purpose was to let them know they were breaking the rules and could have their service cancelled. I don't see anything wrong with it.

Click to expand...

undacova said:

Well I'm glad to see the stance on that subject is not as firm as other things on this board, if it were my next question would have been how much do they pay you... LOL

And I'm glad the "legal" thing was touched, I almost lost my drink out my nose when I read it's "illegal" to tether, LOL.

Click to expand...

Frisco said:

Well.. yeah.

As IOWA posted up there a bit ago, this is in such flux, even legally, that we can't just have a nice big black and white rule about it beyond, "please don't overtly try to teach members how to violate their agreement with their carrier."

Click to expand...

IOWA said:

Definitly a whole lot of grey area here

Click to expand...

undacova said:

It seems black and white to me. You said yourself the carriers can not block an app that isn't causing harm to their network. You all know as well as me Metro isn't going to be able to prove a tethering app is ANY more damaging to their network than youtube or a torrent client.

Just because someone hasn't shelled out the money for this "right" to be recognized doesn't make it less clear what the outcome would be.

Metro and all the other carriers with their Unlimited* plans are scam artists.

Click to expand...

new optimus said:

Part of it is you buy the device you can change roms, you can do the things that are legally your right to do. only esn changes are restricted.
But the tos against tethering is not your device its service which you dont have full legal access too.
However I too agree with you on things. you pay for service what difference does it matter what you use it for.

As to how they can tell, browser user agent.

And how much data is pulled for things, phones typically pull mobile amounts, mbs less then computer browser will.

Click to expand...

IOWA said:

Either way, this is a private forum and we must respect thier rules. We can always try to appeal and get them to reconsider though.

Click to expand...

star2doc said:

If you respect their rules then you should remove all instructions from this forum which circumvent carrier service restrictions, per my previous comment.

(See, the other user told you this was a slippery slope, he warned you.)

Click to expand...

IOWA said:

Either way, this is a private forum and we must respect thier rules. We can always try to appeal and get them to reconsider though.

Click to expand...

sammyz said:

Recently, I have read the forum policy on talking about tethering, you are allowed to talk about it however you want to because each state has different rules about it. Links to illegal or cracked software is not allowed though.

Click to expand...

t3084 said:

Tethering is not on the same level of cloning as phone. one is ACTUALLY illegal.

If everyone actually read the TOS, most people would never accept the terms.

And a word of advice, unless your connection is protected with a VPN or ssh tunnel, your Carrier can easily look at your traffic and see what it being done, cookies, GET/POST request... pretty much MORE than even you can see, this IS THEIR network are you are paying for access to after you agreed to TOS... on top of that, your device is not a multitasking device per say compared to when you are using your computer...

Click to expand...

mikekelso421 said:

When metro see's that's your data usage is 2 gigs downloaded and 15 gigs uploaded, its a dead giveaway that your tethering your data.

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk 2 Beta-6

Click to expand...

sammyz said:

Who uploads 15 gigs of data on a tethered connection??

If anyone would even try to do that without trying to get free wifi from a public library (which is usually a decent speed), I would think he's either insane, or lives in the middle of nowhere xD

Click to expand...

mikekelso421 said:

I know a few people who tether their 4g to their xbox360 so they can use Xbox live. You can piss through alot of data that way in one month. The faster the data the more data you can use in one month. And 15 was a number I just threw out there. Lolnow I'm curious to how much data you would use tethering to an Xbox for a whole month. Especially if your like me and clock in at least 4-5 hours a day on cod. Haha

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk 2 Beta-6

Click to expand...

sammyz said:

I meant on a Metro phone xD.....you would lag so bad unless you lived in Jacsonville, FL or Dallas, TX

Click to expand...

mikekelso421 said:

I know a few people who tether their 4g to their xbox360 so they can use Xbox live. You can piss through alot of data that way in one month. The faster the data the more data you can use in one month. And 15 was a number I just threw out there. Lolnow I'm curious to how much data you would use tethering to an Xbox for a whole month. Especially if your like me and clock in at least 4-5 hours a day on cod. Haha

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk 2 Beta-6

Click to expand...