Vodafone iPhone tethering - a rip off?

spiderPlantMan

Wotcha all,

For the past few months I've had an annoying re-occurring problem with Vodafone.

I have an iPhone on a 1Gb contract with them. This allows the use of tethering whereby I can use my Mac to connect to the internet via 3G whilst out and about (e.g. at meetings etc). Works great.

Now, every month, on my bill, Vodafone states the amount of bandwidth I've used. It's generally not a lot - I'm talking in the region of 30-40Mb a month - nowhere near 1Gb!!

However, on each bill, whenever I've used tethering, I'm being charged £4.17 every time the tethering occurs. The code on the billable item is different from normal handset 3G access. The code is "ACCINT", where normally it's "WAP" Normal handset 3G use remains covered by the limit of 1Gb, and so I don't get charged, however, all the tethering instances are £4.17 extra on top of my bill (even when the tethering amount is only 58Kb!!)

Now, I can hear you crying "well, it's obvious, the tethering isn't covered by Vodafone's 1Gb limit, you're the idiot-hole here".

However, this isn't true. Everytime I phone up Vodafone to complain, they agree with me and refund the charge. I have to do this *every* month where I've used tethering in that month. Every month the customer services advisor I get tells me that they've never seen this before and that its because I've gone over my 1Gb allowance. However, when I politely explain to them that 30Mb is not 1Gb, they really quickly back down and issue the refund.

So here's my point. I'm pretty good at looking at my bill every month and causing a ruckus when they get it wrong (which is every month). BUT... how many people *aren't* checking, and getting this additional charge every month, when they shouldn't be? How much money is Vodafone cashing in here without it's customers knowledge? It's really naughty.

If you're on a similar deal with Vodafone (and it's pretty standard) and you're using tethering, check your monthly bill religiously.

pj-lopez

more rip off stories about Vodafone...lets hope that they monitor forums like this so they can fix the problems with customer relations

Rusty!

spiderPlantMan wrote: »

Now, I can hear you crying "well, it's obvious, the tethering isn't covered by Vodafone's 1Gb limit, you're the idiot-hole here".

However, this isn't true.

Yes, it is true.

Tethering charges are clearly separate. Taken from the bottom of their iPhone page:

Tethering also available: £5 for 500MB, £10 for 1.5GB, £15 for 3GB

spiderPlantMan

Hmm, that must be a new change to their T&Cs, as the contract I signed up to had tethering as standard on a monthly contract (when the Iphone4 came out with them).

Though this would certainly explain why the charge is appearing, and also perhaps why they keep refunding it - they realise they can't retro-change existing contracts forged under previous versions of their T&Cs.

ryantcb

Jailbreak ya iphone use mywi from cydia and teather with wired or wireless connection to your iphones 3g connection and uses only your 1gb allowance.

TwistedPsycho

There has always been a tethering charge in the Vodafone T&C's but the only handset they can enforce it on (because its virtually the only one they can prove tethering on) is the iPhone.

A lot of customers do it with other handsets and don't get picked up for the extra cost though.

I know that if they did with mine, I would be very quickly changing providers!

Rusty!

Yep, iOS tethering is different to all other phones, it requires a separate configuration that is only used for tethering, so it is 100% traceable.

Other phones just route tethered data through the standard APN, so not so easy to spot. As mentioned above, if you jailbreak and use the MyWi app, it gets round this by routing the tethered data in the same way other phones do.

Vodafone

Hi SpiderPlantMan,

I can certainly help clear up some of the confusion here.

When tethering on an iPhone it uses a different APN (Access Point Name) than the one used for normal web browsing. Tethering does not come out of your standard internet bundle, you would need to have an additional pack to include this data. You can view more information on it here.

If there is anything else I can help with then let me know.

Best wishes,

Heidi
Web Relations Team
Vodafone UK

gjchester

spiderPlantMan wrote: »

Hmm, that must be a new change to their T&Cs, as the contract I signed up to had tethering as standard on a monthly contract (when the Iphone4 came out with them).

Though this would certainly explain why the charge is appearing, and also perhaps why they keep refunding it - they realise they can't retro-change existing contracts forged under previous versions of their T&Cs.

AFAIK tethering has never been included on any Vodafone phone, it's always been extra. My contract from the day the IP4 came out states so.

simax

The new plans launched last month allow you to use your standard allowance to tether.

gjchester

simax wrote: »

The new plans launched last month allow you to use your standard allowance to tether.

Hope your right but thats not reflected on their site, and does not appear to be the case on iPhone.