Rant about why tethering is stupid and what you can do about it

I love a good rant, especially when it’s well justified. Maybe there’s nothing you can do about it other than point out the fact that whatever it is you’re griping around, is bad, wrong, evil, unnecessary, etc.

When it comes to paying for tethering on top of your data plan, Mike Elgan hits the nail on the head telling you how it is. Check out his story at blogs.computerworld.com

The carriers want to rip you off. These are the people who charge $2.49 for a ringtone based on a song you’ve already purchased on iTunes for 99 cents.

What a great metaphor for paying for tethering when you already have a data plan! The saddest part is he’s probably right about people paying $2.49 for a ringtone they could make themselves for free!

But back to tethering… I couldn’t sum it up any better than this if I tried:

Make your customers suffer some indignity in order to coerce them to pay absurdly high rates for what they really want. That’s what tethering is: It’s the indignity carriers make you suffer in order to coerce you to pay astronomically high rates for a second data plan.

barnacle-splash-125x125 So what can you do about it?

Root your phone and download an app like Barnacle Wifi Tether. Barnacle is unlimited, free and open source. I think you’ll find it just works like it should, nice and easy.

Like they said in Jurassic Park (imdb it kids), Nature finds a way…