[HTC Aria Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Suleeto:
Good opportunity for a bump, yes. I have my own recent experience.

I remember a few months ago trying to manually set up an APN to get around it... and what finally worked was to install unrevoked and then Liberated. Then I could run the wireless hotspot without trouble.

However... I started having issues downloading MMS... pictures just wouldn't download easily or at all sometimes... I had this problem for a few months, while the wifi hotspotting worked fine. I googled this "network error" I was getting while trying to download MMS attachments, and it said that the Aria has problems switching between two different APN's.

SO... I removed the second APN. Now, I'm not sure if it's the one I originally created BEFORE Liberated, or if Liberated installed its own secondary APN. What I *DO* know is that removing my second APN (and leaving just the locked "MEdia Net" one) fixed my MMS problem... BUT... IT RETURNED THE DAMN "no tethering" notification when I tried to run the hotspot again!!!

WTF??

I hate this. WHAT is it that generates that message?

EDIT: SO I re-created the second (unlocked) APN profile.. I called it "root" and copied all the info from the locked MEdia Net APN profile, and I somehow apparently remembered that the password was CINGULAR, because now when I try the wifi hotspot it works without the error.

SO... it needs to use a fresh profile, because something in the original locked "MEdia Net" APN profile is what triggers the damn wifi error "call 611" message.

I just hope I don't get more MMS problems again. I wish there was a way a guru could get into the "locked" MEdiaNet APN and see what is causing the lockout, and how to remove it, so we can just have ONE APN profile.

But meh. I got tethering back.

NOW... to answer some questions that some of you have raised here... I spoke to two different AT&T techs on the phone.. I made sure to get North American call centers, one in Kentucky I think and the other was in northern California. Both of them said essentially the same thing:

Throttling back will occur with the TOP 5% of data users. These are people who use somewhere around 15-20 gigs a month (which is way beyond the common tiered 2GB limit).

NOW, for those of us who tether, it depends. If you're streaming crap, downloading programs and lots of media, then YES, you're going to push yourself into the higher bracket. However, one of the techs mentioned that he uses Pandora with his Inspire on the HD setting, and he listens to it in his cubicle at work every day, and on the way to and from work in his car. He said he still never goes beyond his 2GB limit. I had been using Pandora on my Aria without the realization there was an HD setting (so apparently I've been enjoying the lower bandwidth stream without issues, sounds fine to me). I haven't even put a dent in my usage.

The only people who truly need to worry about tethering and bandwidth and throttling and Aria phones (and pretty much all the Android phones, won't speak for iPhone on this) are those power users who are tethering their phone to their computer CONSTANTLY, and raping the net for all sorts of streams and media downloads... bittorrents, emule feeds, etc. People who are indeed abusing things and doing so not for one month, but he said for a few consecutive months. Honestly, those are the people who SHOULD be throttled IMO. I don't mind the idea of someone going over their 2GB limit, or in the case of the few remaining people on Unlimited data plans (such as myself), doing so a few months scattered throughout the year is one thing, but consistently syphoning at high transfers every month in a row... yeah, that's not 99% of us.

So really, I'll keep tethering my Galaxy Tab to my phone, rather than pay for my Tab's data plan. I *can't* do any hardcore data hogging on this Galaxy Tab. It just makes sense to take advantage of my Aria's 3G data, since I can use it more comfortably on the tablet than on the tiny Aria. Truth be told, that's why I got the Aria... small and a great phone, able to serve the tablet data, and on those rare moments where all I have on me is the phone, do pretty much most the basic Android things.

Anyways I hope this contributes some to the thread.