[Atrix 4G Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Schoralous:
Two things:

1) The point being that I DON'T HAVE TO PAY TO TETHER!

The function to tether is built into my phone. MY PHONE. I own it outright, it's my property, it's not subsidized or anything like that. Tethering is just 'routing' a function built into any unix network device, which is exactly what this phone is, a unix device with built in routing. It's an integral part of the device operating system.

Now when I first signed my contract with AT&T no one really cared what tethering was. AT&T Techs used to assist those customers that did call asking how to do it with setup, free of charge, The instructions for those who looked where readily available on the message/bulletin boards of the time, this establishes precedent. Under contract law, a party to the contract does not get to assume control or right of control over anything not explicitly named in the contract and it's definitions. This is established law and AT&T has no problem invoking this if you attempt to break your contract with them by cancelling early. AT&T cannot have their cake and eat it too if they think they can assume control over something they do not own the right to control. No one can under contract come back after the contract is in effect and say "oh we forgot to charge you for this, so we are going to change the contract in the middle to include it, whether you agree with the change or not" - that is illegal.

If they had not said I was "grandfathered" to the terms of my original contract, this would be a moot point, but they did and therefore have to honor that. The original contract said nothing about tethering or connecting another device, it simply said "Unlimited Data" and that is what I expect to get.

Add to that that I fully own my device. It's not subsidized therefore AT&T has no ownership control over what I do with my property. If I want to turn on an option supported by my devices OS, that is my business and none of theirs.

2) Unlimited Data - the definition of "unlimited" is very clear, something that has no limits. It does not matter if I use 1 bit or 1 gigabyte, whether it comes directly from my smartphone or not since it's still data and there was no specific exclusion/exception for data coming from another device in my contract. It's simply unlimited data usage, period. Now even if we had not already established what I stated in #1, just the unlimited aspect covers this alone. It's data, I have an unlimited data plan which means I can more any amount of data over that connection as I want with no additional charges. No where in the contract (then or now) does it state where that data has to originate/end with a specific device.

AT&T can say whatever they want about additional devices and data usage, fact of the matter is it means nothing since what they are talking about was not included in the original contract, which it has to be by law.

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Just because AT&T wants to take advantage of a built in feature that they can bill additional charges with, does not give them the right to arbitrarily redefine a word (unlimited) or the contract I signed with them.

AT&T and the other carriers simply see this as an additional profit center and are now backpedaling due to their own short-sightedness in not seeing the potential in the first place. It's not my fault they did not recognize what a potential profit center this was. It's not my fault they did not write their contracts better to cover this.

It's also not my responsibility. If the situation were reversed they would be filing 10 lawsuits a day against me to keep the contract in force as it was written.

AT&T is counting on it being to expensive for anyone to challenge them on this, thus allowing them to do it by default.