http://www.pcworld.com/article/248528/tethering_a_quirky_conundrum.html#tk.nl_bdx_h_crawl
Tethering: A Quirky Conundrum
Using your phone for a computer connection is very expensive, or it’s free — depending on your carrier; and it could change.
By Kevin Purdy Jan 22, 2012 7:21 AM
It’s a weird thing, a service that’s either free or $50. But the way today’s wireless customers are expected to pay for data plans today, that’s how it stands for anyone who wants to use their phone to connect a laptop or another device to the web.
That connection is usually termed as either “tethering” when it involves a cable connection between phone and laptop, and as a “hotspot” when the device creates a very small Wi-Fi access point that multiple devices can connect to wirelessly. To anyone who’s had to pay painful ransoms for working Wi-Fi at a hotel or airport, or found their coffee shop’s connection unusably bogged down, this sounds like a nice little preparedness tool. (See “Wi-Fi Tethering 101: Use a Smartphone as a Mobile Hotspot.”)
And it is, but if you want to “officially” tether your phone, it’s going to cost you. Under AT&T’s newest data pricing, you have to purchase the most expensive plan, $50 per 5 GB per month. Sprint charges $29.99 per month for Sprint Mobile Hotspot, which is capped at 5 GB per month, and Verizon hotspot plans include a 4 GB monthly offering for $50.
T-Mobile, on the other hand, is, according to what looks like leaked internal memos, bundling hotspot service with its unlimited 4G data plans, beginning January 25. It’s cited as a potential tool for salespeople to push a customer on the fence and weighing data costs toward the fourth-place network. But then again, how many customers are really aware that tethering and hotspots are even available, and what they offer?
I couldn’t find any research or studies showing tethering or hotspot use in searches of Google News and a private research database (but if you’ve found a good study or survey, leave a comment here and I’ll update the post). Informally, among friends and contacts, the only folks who know about tethering know two things about it: it’s expensive if you pay for it, and that there are many ways to avoid paying for it.
One of the biggest reasons, if not perhaps the biggest reason, that owners of Android and iPhone phones “root” or “jailbreak” their device to install custom firmware and operating systems is so they can install unofficial tethering and hotspot services. Perhaps the most popular unofficial system, CyanogenMod, is at the point where it not only pushes Google to offer some of its features in their official Android builds, but is considering its own Android app store, to provide apps like ClockworkMod Tether.
The main pitch for ClockworkMod Tether is that it uses a bit of Android development know-how to pass your cellular connection along to a Windows, Mac, or Linux system without, supposedly, your carrier being able to notice the conversion taking place. Carriers have, in the past, shown that they can see exactly what customers are doing when they plug into their phone, whether by simply blocking the effort and showing a warning, or going a bit further and automatically adding a tethering plan to a customer’s service plan.. Some carriers have exerted their influence to make unofficial tethering apps unavailable to their customers in the Android Market, while Google, in its own line of Nexus devices, makes tethering and hotspots a built-in feature.
Using official or unofficial tethering apps, the connection is almost never as fast as it would be on just the device alone, especially when it comes to looking up new sites and searching. Nobody looks or feels in control when they have to fumble with two devices connected by a cord. And when you make a phone or tablet into a straight-up data pipeline, the battery life is about as good as if you were using it as a space heater. But a certain set of users will always want a backup plan, and the phone is the best one most of us have.
So HTML5 is like a lightweight, better supported, faster and open version of Flash. It runs natively in the browser rather than through a plugin controlled by a corporation. So what’s in Flash’s favour?Flash does have a gigantic web footprint. It’s been around since 1996 and for a long time was considered the de-facto technology to use for dynamic content. There are tens of thousands of websites that have used Flash extensively and will continue to do so, because changing it is difficult and expensive. Flash is here to stay and will probably still be around for many more years.Flash has good audio and video support. There’s still a tricky situation in HTML5 since browsers all support different combinations of audio and video formats (also discussed in our HTML5 audio formats entry). However, providing you convert audio and video to multiple formats, you can still get complete coverage in HTML5. That’s something Construct 2 will help you with.Flash, apart from iOS, has nearly complete browser support. However, as we mentioned earlier, the latest browsers support it excellently. It’s only a matter of time until HTML5 is just as widely supported.Flash has mature tools. Adobe’s Flash Builder and other tools are powerful and well-supported. HTML5 content can be written in Javascript and HTML. However, without specialist tools, it’s still more difficult to rewrite Flash content in HTML5. Adobe’s tools are also much more expensive than Construct 2 will be.That’s where Construct 2 comes in. It’s the HTML5 editor. We’re aiming to allow you to make all those things Flash is famous for – games, banners and apps – for HTML5, quickly and easily, in a great editor. While Flash has a huge footprint, HTML5 is the better platform, and web developers all over the world are looking for ways to ditch Flash and use HTML5 instead. Construct 2 will make that easier for them. Rather than cling to a dieing platform, we’re looking to the future.What’s left for Flash? HTML5 does games, banners and apps better. Flash might still see some use in video, while browser makers battle over codec support. However, YouTube are already running a HTML5 video beta. Many other video sites have similar projects. Will Flash really have a video monopoly for that long? Flash lets you access webcam and microphone. Is that really such a large market? Adobe may add some more features to try and keep Flash going. Will those features really be necessary, given HTML5 seems to be able to do just fine? Even Adobe are starting to support HTML5 with their tools, such as the early ‘Wallaby’ Flash-to-HTML5 converter. Maybe even they realise HTML5 is the future!So, sooner or later, HTML5 will do everything Flash does, but better. To us it’s a no-brainer. Supporting Flash is jumping on board a sinking ship. It may be sinking slowly, but it is definitely sinking. Given time, the main concern – browser support – will be remedied. Games, apps and banners all over the web will be HTML5. A few corner cases – live streaming, webcam usage – will remain Flash-based, but small compared to HTML5 use. It’s simple: HTML5 will be the new Flash, and we’re going to help it happen.
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