I'm also in the US and I can see carriers removing this feature. I guess when I say standard android build I mean before the carriers mess with it. I feel pretty safe with the nexus one.
Google seems to go all out to promote android, others be dammed: First with their free satnav (making TomTom lose 20% of it's value), now with tethering.
While I love tethering, I wonder what carriers will think of it. I can imagine this backfiring, with carriers less likely to push tethering-supported devices that eat into their (more profitable) laptop packages.
I still don't understand, what is the problem with tethering.
Where I live, the operators don't care about it. Even the lowest-end phones support it. As far as I remember, I never owned a phone that didn't support it (the oldest as a modem on serial port and CSD/GPRS speeds).
So what is so special on some smartphones, that it causes problems? As far as I remember, 3G phones (both feature and smart) always supported tethering, whether over USB (CDC ACM, CDC ECM, RNDIS) or Bluetooth (DUN or PAN).
My guess is that an unlimited plan on your phone doesn't actually pull a lot of data if you just use it as a phone. It's a different story after you tether it to your laptop and start downloading entire movies or throwing a 10GB directory into dropbox. Maybe I'm missing something, but that's my guess.
Most unlimited data plans I've seen have some sort of throttling clause, basically stating that if you use more than X GB of bandwidth in a month they reserve the right throttle you to Y Kb/s for the remainder of that month.
I think actually that's just T-Mobile. They definitely seem to be the most progressive of the US carriers.
Most carriers either cut off your data entirely for the rest of the month, threaten to terminate your contract, or charge you an outrageous overage fee.
They sell differently priced plans for datacards and phones? That would make sense.
Here they sell just data plans. Whether you use dedicated modem or have the plan on your voice SIM, it is your problem. Some operators allow to share the data quota among multiple SIMs, so you can have both. Because the price is same, so there is nothing to cannibalize.
Currently yes, I pay flat fee per month, however, my plan is speed-limited.
For the high-speed plans, there is always stated data limit. If you want to transfer more bits, like movies or sync big folder mentioned above, it is cheaper to use fixed connection (unlimited at commonly achievable 40 Mbps FTTH is about the same price as 20 GB over theoretical 14.4 Mpbs HSDPA; about 24 EUR/mo, both by the same provider [Orange]).
But still, if you want just few GBs per month, do not need fixed connection, why would be the provider bothered by tethering? Browsing and mailing is still more comfortable with laptop, than phone.
I think it's more about promoting ubiquitous access to the internet more than promoting android. Promoting android is a means to and end not the end itself.
I'm an iPhone user seriously considering a switch to Android due to the big "we must control your device" stick Apple has up its collective ass.
I've read posts saying that some Android phones can't be upgraded to newer OSs, and that people are waiting for certain features to show up on their device's special build. How true is that, and how practical is it to ignore and install fresh new releases from the Android team? Does doing that void any warranties? What about installing a customized build? Most critically, is any kind of jailbreaking or exploitation of bugs needed to get builds not released by the manufacturer onto the device?
> people are waiting for certain features to show up on their device's special build. How true is that
Very. Some manufacturers are painfully slow to release new builds.
> how practical is it to ignore and install fresh new releases from the Android team?
Depending on your phone, this can either be trivial, or nearly impossible. In general, you'll want to devices that Google itself has released, as they tend to get the most sustained attention from developers. In particular, the three Google-released devices are the Passion (Nexus One), Magic (Ion), and Dream (ADP1).
> Does doing that void any warranties?
For the Nexus One, yes. For the ADP1 and Ion, no.
> What about installing a customized build?
Installing custom builds is very simple once your device has been unlocked. You can essentially boot a "restore" image as if it were a live cd, and then use that to install new system software.
> is any kind of jailbreaking or exploitation of bugs needed to get builds not released by the manufacturer onto the device?
That varies with the device. For the Google-released devices, the most you'll need is to grab the "fastboot" tool and run "./fastboot oem unlock". Other devices, like the Milestone (Droid) do not have vendor-supported methods for unlocking.
Most critically, is any kind of jailbreaking or exploitation of bugs needed to get builds not released by the manufacturer onto the device?
Yes. What's usually left out of the discussion about Android vs. iPhone's "openness" is that you have to root and unlock your Android phone to install any non-vendor approved operating system mods, just like the iPhone. Here's a good starting point if you want to do this: http://androidandme.com/2010/01/hacks/video-how-to-unlock-an...
It depends on the device and the requirements of the devices' carriers. Most carriers specify that devices has bootloaders that will only allow flashing system images signed by the carrier; these devices require some manner of exploit to gain root access and overwrite the system's bootloader. There are also devices capable of running Android that have no restrictions on the bootloader at all, such as the Neo Freerunner; almost as "open" is the Nexus One, which has a bootloader with a user-accessible method to "unlock" the phone and flash a new system image at the cost of voiding your warranty.
Strictly that's true, but it depends what you mean by "operating system mods." Apps that replace "core functions" like the dialer, home screen, browser, etc. are widely available (in the official Market and elsewhere) for Android.
This is great news, and rather unexpected. I'm running the cyanogen firmware on my nexus one specifically for the wifi hotspot app. (the multicolored trackball is just a bonus).
I'll probably stick to the default firmware once 2.2 comes out.
The only other thing that cyanogen adds that I'd miss, is a 1-100 indicator on the battery charge icon in the notification area.
So Android and the Pre both have wifi hotspots, but iPhone doesn't. I had hoped they'd add this for OS 4.0, but of course that might hurt sales of the iPad 3G (and all the free marketing it generates from mobile networks).
If you have a Nexus One, it most certainly will. Unlike the G1 or MT3G phones, T-Mobile doesn't have anything to do with the image on a N1, mainly because you bought it directly from Google instead of T-Mobile. I expect my N1 to be one of the devices to have the official 2.2 update from Google.
I somehow doubt the end of all-you-can-eat mobile data plans is inevitable. I think mobile plans will go the same way cable and dsl plans in the home have gone. All you can eat with ever increasing bandwidth.
Do you have some information I'm unaware of that would change that trend?
The more you use mobile data, the more it costs your carrier. This becomes a big issue when you allow tethering and have some customers using massively more data than others, but paying the same price. Sure, I guess we can continue to have low-usage customers subsidizing the high-usage customers, but I don't think that will last.
I don't think this is a bad thing. If I use less data than average, I should be able to pay less than someone else.
(And as an aside, I don't recommend testing the theory that your home DSL/Cable connection is truly unlimited.)
The more I use my Cable internet at home the more it costs Comcast. That doesn't stop them from continuously upping the bandwidth and giving me "effectively" unlimited useage. You haven't demonstrated this is any different than the story for mobile carriers.
That's fine. Much better for carriers to tell you how much data you can use and otherwise stay out of your business, than to claim "unlimited" data and then impose usage restrictions that barely let you do anything other than email and web.
