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Question

Is there any way of hiding/fudging AT&T data plan usage?

Jun 17, 2011 1:30AM PDT

So I have a jail broken iPhone 4 and I use MyWi for just about everything. Literally; nearly all of the media in my household is a direct result of the MyWi connection, which tethers to my home network of 3 pc's, two ps3's and an xbox, two iPhones, an iPad, and lots of Internet tv streamed to two large flatscreen HDTV's. Im able to afford this because I have a grandfathered unlimited data plan. I recently received an email from AT&T stating that I must stop tethering to my devices, or have my account switched to AT&T's 4gig data tethering plan forever more. I definitely surpass 4GB easily to say the least, and being a student living on stipends, I definitely can't afford to pay the exorbitant overage charges for relatively minuscule additional data coverage. Also, is AT&T within their legal rights to tell me I can't use my jail broken apps? (since the Supreme Court did rule that JBing is perfectly legal right now). Is there any way to hide/reduce the total tethered data usage? Any clues would be most appreciated. I hope to have this figured out (if possible) by June 24th (the ultimatum date AT&T handed me). Please, absolutely any info would be highly prized. Hell, I could even pay pal you some $ for saving me so many future overage charges!

Discussion is locked

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Answer
One option
Jun 17, 2011 2:45AM PDT

One option that you could do is that you could purchase a pre-paid go-phone card for you iPhone and you could just use MYWi from your jailbroken iPhone. This would give you some more time to think of something else to do with your dilemma. Plus, the data charges come out to being much less expensive and you will note have a 2-year contract.

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Answer
RE: Is there any way of hiding/fudging AT&T data plan usage?
Oct 11, 2011 7:49PM PDT

Can you hide your tethered data usage? No, not really. Especially now, that AT&T is watching your data usage more closely.

AT&T has begun to crack down on the 5% of its wireless subscribers that use very large amounts of data. This is to prevent those few subscribers (like yourself) with the grandfathered unlimited data plans from sucking up all the bandwidth, constantly downloading huge torrent files on several tethered devices, for example.

AT&T tells customers that the new data plans were instituted to help customers avoid large data overage charges by having them choose a plan that best fits their average monthly data usage. Most customers use less than 2GB/month, what with WiFi being everywhere, so the smallest data plan available is 2GB/month. New data plans are going to be available soon, also (though unlimited data plans have been permanently discontinued).

I don't know of any way to hide or fudge your data usage at the moment. Stick to using WiFi as much as you can, which doesn't count towards your data usage, and cool it on the tethering. If you (or AT&T) change your data plan, you will never, ever be able to get your grandfathered unlimited data plan back, so keep that in mind.

I currently work in the click to chat customer service division for AT&T, out of training but still very new, so forgive me if I'm mistaken with anything.

Good luck!

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Answer
RE: Jailbroken apps
Oct 11, 2011 8:06PM PDT

To answer the other question, I'm pretty sure that in the Terms and Conditions you agreed to in your contract, Apple states that you are not allowed to download and use 3rd-party apps/software. I doubt you'd get in trouble for using, say, a 3rd party tetris game you downloaded already, that doesn't use any data but using a 3rd party tethering app, without paying for a tethering data plan is definitely a big no-no.

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Answer
Yep!
Oct 11, 2011 10:48PM PDT

Simple. You get a wireless router. Connect the iPhone to your cable/satellite/DSL connection via the router. Anything downloaded to the iPhone goes through your Internet connection, not AT&T. Voila!

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I wondered that too,
Oct 12, 2011 2:47AM PDT

but that answer seemed so simple that I thought that the Poster must have thought of this.

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The only problem . . .
Oct 12, 2011 4:52AM PDT

with using a home router is that you are at home. If that is, in fact, a problem. I guess you could download your movies and stuff at home for you to watch away from home.

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They are talking about Home here,
Oct 12, 2011 7:44AM PDT

note that they do "lots of internet TV streamed to two large flat screen HDTV's"