Until the tethering plan came out, tethering was NEVER officially supported by T-Mobile. Just because the phone had the capability, T-Mobile as a company never promised it would work and never sold that ability. I equate you situation more to the likes of NFC. Phones are coming out now with NFC, but nobody supports it yet. When it does eventually launch, the carriers could opt to charge for its use. Just like tethering with the blackberry. T-Mobile did not offer tethering, and the blackberries had their own way of getting around the fact that T-Mobile doesn't support it. However, tethering is a service and not a feature in my opinion. Whoever is providing the service is the one who gets to decide how to deliver it and if/how to charge for it. And like a previous poster said, T-Mobile is really pushing mobile broadband. They are not going to offer free tethering when they are trying to sell that. And if you just got the blackberry last June, that hasn't even been a year yet. With that short of a time, you will be hard pressed to find a loyalty rep who can do anything regarding handset discounts. Official policy is no discounts if under 12 months since last discount... period. T-Mobile (nor any carrier for that matter) is not trying to go bankrupt by giving customers anything they want whenever they feel slighted. They are a for profit company and not a charity.