That's what I thought I read after the fact. The sales guy lead me on to believe that I could do all that with the "UNLIMITED data place" which I have. Not sure what part of the UNLIMITED plan has the limit of not passing wireless connection to your laptop. I figured this out at home after getting the phone. Then I was able to figure out how to use the USB cable to pass the wireless signal without the extra cost so that works for my backup internet application incase I'm somewhere that doesn't have free wifi.