T-Mobile Un-tether Open Source Android

Google’s Android Phones are hailed as open source sovereignties of freedom, where developers can do as they please.  It even runs on a Linux Kernel, for Java’s sake, which is about as ideally open as you can get.  Unless you actually use it with a carrier, which phones kind of do, as T-Mobile have ordered Google to ban swathes of Marketplace applications - and Google obeyed.

The affected applications are “tethering” programs, which let you use your phone as a wifi hotspot for any other devices you have.  How dare those filthy users use their data connection to access data - without paying T-Mobile more for the privilege!

While the tethering ban is backed up by T-Mobile’s Terms of Service, it’d be hard to piss off a gphone user more without resetting their search engine to Yahoo.  The whole point of Android is the open source freedom, and this is the worst possible example of “Yes, that thing you’re doing is simpler and better, but we’re just going to ban it and charge extra.”  The way the tethering apps were available for ages before the ban only reinforces the idea of telecomms carriers as years behind on technology, noticing (and eliminating) things only when dollar signs appear.