Re: tethering

On Sat, 6 Nov 2010, John Crawford wrote:
> Because cell phones typically only have web browsing, they only need 
> port 80.

Hmmm.  But I read e-mail on my phone too, using HTC Mail.  (If I used my 
Gmail account at all, I could use the Gmail app on my phone, too.)  Do 
these things use port 80, or something else?

> So the company may decide to limit the type of traffic allowed 
> especially since tethering is still a hot subject, and usually not 
> allowed.

What do you mean by "hot subject"?

FWIW, I believe that, when I tethered on my *previous* phone, I had to 
load some software onto my laptop, and I know that I got charged for my 
tethered data usage, separate from my regular data plan.

However, my HTC Hero had a system upgrade recently (which introduced a few 
bugs into the system, sigh), and *now*, whenever I plug my phone into my 
laptop (via USB cable) to charge it up, I get a list of options: do I want 
to charge the phone only, or do I want to mount it as a disk (or drive or 
whatever), or do I want to share the internet, etc.  I haven't had to 
install any new software on my laptop or anything like that (at least not 
consciously); all I have to do is click the button next to "share the 
internet" instead of the button next to "charge only".

So, last night, I figured I'd test the connection for just a few seconds, 
to (1) see if it works and (2) see if I get charged extra for it.

Well, as for (1), yeah, it works, within certain parameters: like I say, I 
can browse but I can't PuTTy.  And as for (2), I'd say the jury is still 
out, because it can sometimes take a while for data usage to show up on my 
account (at least when I check my account online).  But if I start to see 
*tomorrow's* data usage on my account, and the charges I've rung up for 
the month so far are still $0.00, then I'm guessing it's safe to say I can 
tether for free.  (Though I'd still do it as rarely as possible, of 
course, because it's not like my data plan is unlimited or anything like 
that.)

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