LG Voyager Titanium, Verizon, and Bluetooth Internet

[Tristicus]

So, the other week when I was internet-less except for my phone, I decided to try hooking my Voyager up to the MAC that was there and had Bluetooth. I had heard things about being able to connect to the web before, so I figured it would be a worth a shot. We have the unlimited data plan and everything, so I figured it would be easy enough and fast enough to just browse forums or something.

When I went to plug it up, it took me a few tries. I didn't know exactly what to set, so I had to keep trying (still don't remember exactly what I did, but if there is a guide, I'd love it). Finally, I seemed to be able to get the internet going...however, the phone internet went on and decided to switch to a Verizon screen that told me I had to pay $30 a month for data to use this "feature" I believe. Regardless, it told me I needed a plan.

Do I? I already have unlimited data, and am damn sure not paying another $30 just for this, but I thought that I could (tether is the right word?) it with a PC via Bluetooth (or even USB I guess). Am I doing it wrong?

 

[Spoooon]

There are ways to tether your phone and get around that, but if you are doing it legit, then there is a fee and a 5GB limit I believe.

 

[Tristicus]

How though? That is what I want to know, as I might have to do the same thing this summer. I don't have a problem "breaking" warranty or anything, I use Bitpim which is supposedly voids it if they find out, I just want to be able to do it. Browsing on the phone is a bit of a pain...

 

[Spoooon]

Well, I don't know if there are ways for you to do it with your particular phone. You could check howardforums.

 

[Tristicus]

Hmm, alright. I think I may have found it there:

http://cellphoneforums.net/lg-voyager/t265831-basic-hacks-how-tos-voyager.html

If it is against Verizon's TOS though, can they do something to us about it? I doubt they'd know, and I could care less, but...

 

[Spoooon]

I don't know. Browsing howardforums, it sounds like people have been busted before. But those people probably far exceeded the typical usage. I've been going nuts on my phone this billing cycle and am at 507MB of data. I can't really imagine hitting or exceeding 5GB until they get flash going.

 

[hanoverphist]

i had the same argument with the verizon guys about their "data" plan. one of their family plans includes data, so i tried to switch my omnia and my daughters env3 to it. they said i would still have to pay the 30 a month for the data on my phone, since the included "data" wasnt smartphone data. so, they have data for smartphones and "data" for 3g multimedia phones that are completely different.

as for bypassing it, ive heard good and bad stories on it working and not. the worst was a "friend of a friend" getting back charged 30 a month for the whole contract that had passed. the best was a guy here at my works friend that uses 3-4gb a month and vzw hasnt said anything in a year about it.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

It depends how you're using the BT internet. I think I kinda understand now. Maybe someone mentioned it here or HoFo, but....

If you're using your 2G/3G internet on your phone and to tether it like bridging your BT, then it's virtually undetectable... until you start loading all this desktop content and downloading everything.

The 5GB limit is a soft limit. At least for AT&T. It should be the same at Big Red. If you're clearly shooting over it with newsgroup connections in the logs, they'll know you're screwing around. I've heard of plenty of ATT customers go over and not have problems. You just have to be blatantly tethering and using it like you do Comcast to get shut down/charged.

Now there's also other ways I've done it where you use your phone as a modem, and essentially you "dial in" to the VZW or ATT or whatever APN. This is more detectable. I'm not sure exactly why but someone had an explanation and I suppose it makes sense to me because the only reason you'd dial into that is to tether whereas a bridged connection is not as bad. This is an easier way to do things and a lot of times this works easily. Bridging connections/ad-hoc Wifi requires rooting in Android phones and its not the easiest thing to implement, using a phone as a modem on the other hand is a lot easier and so this is probably why a lot of people get caught tethering because this is so easy to detect.

 

[Tristicus]

So, if I was just browsing web pages, watching a few YouTube vids a day..would that be suspicious? Since 12/1/09, I've used 968gb of up/down on my PC. I'm obviously not going to be downloading torrents and such, which is the bulk of that, but I have a tendency to watch a lot of YouTube videos and such.