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My knowledge of programming for Android is fairly limited and this is something I've wondered for a while but never seen really explained anywhere.

My wondering about this is mainly academic right now, though the reason is, I have a 4G phone with a paid tethering plan. I share this internet with my housemates, they pay part of my tethering fee, everyone's happy. One of the guys barely uses the net at all, so we'd been talking about how he should pay less, and I started thinking about if I could make an app that kept track of how much data each person used. I thought about it for a few days, and I've realized there's so much about tethering I have no idea about, thus the questions. Now I'm really curious how this is done.

First, how do apps like EasyTether and PDAnet allow for tethering without any root access? Are they actually implementing their own network stack in software, or is there some other trick to it? I really have no idea and could only guess.

Second, how then do some apps create an ad Hoc wifi network, still without access to root?

Anyone have any thoughts?

cost
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  • Offtopic: you have to pay for tethering? So you pay for 4G and then also a tethering fee? Here in the Netherlands there is no such thing as tethering fee (it could be disabled by provider but that's another topic) – RvdK Mar 18 '13 at 14:30
  • @RvdK To speak for a technicality, you pay for the ability to tether on the 3G network, whereas legally speaking the telecom can't charge for 4G tethering. Actually, I pay for the ability to generate a wifi hotspot, not the ability to tether. It's murky to say the least, I've just never poked around in it and never really wanted to cancel the tethering simply because I'm grandfathered into an unlimited tethering plan, something not a lot of people have. – cost Mar 18 '13 at 16:14

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