My Mom and I both have MyTouch4G's. On her phone she's been using the Wi-Fi hotspot feature with her laptop for months, with no charge. Until today...
When I first fired it up for her months ago I first called T-Mo because I believed the service cost an extra $14.95 a month but was told by a quite lacadasical representative that "it's free." It's been working fine for months, no charges on her bill, etc. until today when I visited her and she showed me the pushed T-Mobile page that pops up when she tried to connect. It showed the Wi-Fi Hotspot/USB Tethering rates and links to add them to an account.:'(
Curious to see why it was free for months but now suddenly $14.95 a month i called T-Mo. I was told that the feature is included for "free" for a time but then must be subscribed to after passing a certain limit. The rep would not give me details on the threshold of this free trial; how long it lasts or how much data is allowed before being charged.
I found it kinda weird that she wouldn't provide details, just that "it's free for a period of time." I tried my phones Wi-Fi hotspot feature on my Mom's laptop and sure enouigh it works, for free. It's the first time I've ever used the feature, so there isn't some blanket change that happened. I have a feeling it's either 30 days free (total use time) or an accumulated data level that once reached causes the charges to be incurred.
I went Googling for answers but found only speculation...no iron clad details on this free trial for the Wi-Fi HotSpot feature. A data limit seems the most popular explanation...or a throttled data crunch once a limit is reached, followed by the trial disappearing. Weird how T-Mo doesn't offer a more bottom line explanation...
Either way, Mom's pissed and I've got free WiFi tethering for awhile longer...wooo!!!
BTW, she used the WiFi hotspot a lot. Tons of YouTube vid's, movie streaming, etc. Lot's of bandwidth being eaten up. So I don't think there's a data limit. I'm banking on the 30 total day trial.