iPhone 4 Beta Shows AT&T Tethering

An anonymous reader found news that will strike fear into the hearts of every 3G user in NYC. "Apple released iPhone OS 4.0 Beta 4 on Tuesday evening and it wasn't long before developers found the strongest evidence yet that tethering for US-based iPhone customers may happen sooner than later."

Comments

For a price of course

[imamac]

Because, unlimited data isn't really unlimited.

Re:For a price of course

[NickLarsen]

Baby steps.

Re:For a price of course

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you live in New York, where 5GB is the most you can possibly ever pull down in a month due to network issues and speeds. That makes it unlimited! Who needs thottling or limits, when you can just overload your network and overcharge your customers!

Re:For a price of course

[Scutter]

Because, unlimited data isn't really unlimited.

If it's anything like AT&T's current offerings, you'll pay $49/month just for the ability to tether, but you'll have to pay $5/month per website, plus $5/month (per "channel") to stream internet radio, plus $5/month for video, plus $5/month for 200 e-mails. It's unlimited alright. The only limitation is how deep your pocket is.

Re:For a price of course

[Culture20]

Unless you live in New York, where 5GB is the most you can possibly ever pull down in a month due to network issues and speeds. That makes it unlimited! Who needs thottling or limits, when you can just overload your network and overcharge your customers!

And this is why I don't understand why companies would spend so much on throttling; it's a naturally self-limiting system.

Re:For a price of course

[elrous0]

And Android, all you have to do is download PDAnet, and it doesn't come with a monthly charge. So why take baby steps with Apple/AT&T when you can walk like a man?

Re:For a price of course

[jisatsusha]

iPhone has has the ability to tether in the UK since 3GS came out. O2 sell plans with "unlimited" data, but if you want to tether, you have to pay another £15 per month (on top of the £35 per month contract) for 5Gb of tethered data transfers.

Re:For a price of course

[Thanshin]

Which is why this:

tethering for US-based iPhone customers may happen sooner than later."

makes no sense.

It's already "later".

"sooner" was the release day of the first IPhone. It's been later ever since.

Re:For a price of course

[Darth Sdlavrot]

But before you even do that you have to buy an Android phone -- which isn't free, or even inexpensive.

I already own an iPod Touch and a MB Air.

What I want is an inexpensive basic phone that I can use to tether my existing devices.

Some days I just want to carry my phone, other days I want to carry my phone and my iPod, and some other days I'm willing to carry my laptop. (And there are days I don't want to carry any of them.)

Re:For a price of course

[elrous0]

AT&T are the jedi masters of "later," it seems. "Later we're going to offer better customer service," "Later we're going to offer tethering (at a high price)," "Later we won't drop your calls so much." I finally ended my landline DSL from them after I heard my third year of "Later we're going to offer 6mbps in your area."

Re:For a price of course

[jittles]

Oh tell me about it. I love how I can't download something from the App store over 3G because its larger than 10MB. Because I pay $30 a month to have unlimited data in 10MB chunks? I don't think so. And don't get me started on how text messages some how magically aren't part of that unlimited data? Last I checked texts were just ones and zeroes... of course, so are the voice calls, aren't they?

Re:For a price of course

[mrsteveman1]

Baby steps.

Babies shouldn't have unlimited data

Re:For a price of course

[commodore64_love]

>>>unlimited data isn't really unlimited.

Unlimited TIME is what they advertise, not unlimited data. Read the contract. And I agree with their position. If you're downloading 1000 gigabytes each month while your grandma downloads just her emails, why should you pay the same amount each month? Electricity, water, gasoline, natural gas - all metered. It makes logical sense to do the same for data.

For example Comcast has a current cap of 250 GB. They could sell additional gigabytes at ~10 cents each for people who enjoy watching lots of videos or other high-data activities.

Re:For a price of course

[aug24]

Be fair... unlimited at present is implicitly "unlimited on an iPhone without tethering" and so is effectively constrained, and they've done their maths based on that. It's perfectly reasonable to charge a different price for a tethering option that will probably result in much higher download totals.

Re:For a price of course

[elrous0]

Actually, some Android phones are "free" (mine was). Of course, there is the matter of a 2 year contract, but they pretty much all require that now so that's a wash. But my point was the Android at least doesn't require the tethering fee *on top of* all that.

Re:For a price of course

[commodore64_love]

Because they get complaints from users that they can't watch Youtube videos in real time. So it's perfectly natural for companies to throttle downloading activities, while giving priority to Youtube, Skype, and othe realtime applications.

As for cost, I don't think wireless will ever be as fast or cheap as wired. There's only ONE radio spectrum and it has to be shared with everyone within the cell tower's zone. In contrast the wired internet has an infinite number of spectrums, limited only by the number of wires laid down.

Re:For a price of course

[zach_the_lizard]

You could already do this with a jailbroken phone; I did it just for kicks a few times. I didn't keep doing it, because who knows what would happen if they caught me torrenting things with that connection.

Re:For a price of course

[Wiarumas]

My biggest complaint is the market's price fixing on text messages. There is no way in hell that unlimited texting warrants a $30 price tag when the iPhone comes with a $30 unlimited data plan. Yes, you can play FPS, stream music, videos, browse the web, etc, but those 8 digit text messages are somehow made separate and charged at the same price?

Re:For a price of course

[bhamlin]

... my point was the Android at least doesn't require the tethering fee ...

The Android OS doesn't. Your carrier usually does. AT&T only "allows" tethering on their system if you pay for it. If they catch you doing it they'll just add it to your account and backbill you for how long they think you've been doing it. Verizon is the same way (with their Blackberries, anyway).

Re:For a price of course

[WrongSizeGlass]

If it's anything like AT&T's current offerings, you'll pay $49/month just for the ability to tether, but you'll have to pay $5/month per website, plus $5/month (per "channel") to stream internet radio, plus $5/month for video, plus $5/month for 200 e-mails. It's unlimited alright. The only limitation is how deep your pocket is.

So what you're saying is AT&T is offering unlimited fees? Add that with the unlimited dropped calls I endure and unlimited iPhone lockups I encounter and it's just a hat trick of unlimitedness ... [Ren Höek] Joy! [/Ren Höek]

Re:For a price of course

[WrongSizeGlass]

If you're downloading 1000 gigabytes each month while your grandma downloads just her emails, why should you pay the same amount each month?

So what you're saying is that AT&T should raise my grandma's rates? Please don't give them any ideas ;-)

Re:For a price of course

[elrous0]

But that's what is so beautiful about Android. No need to jailbreak your Android OS to tether, and the app is right there (no need to even bypass the marketplace, which Android also allows you to do).

Re:For a price of course

[jonpublic]

agreed. mod up.

Re:For a price of course

[Em Emalb]

Unless you live in New York, where 5GB is the most you can possibly ever pull down in a month due to network issues and speeds. That makes it unlimited! Who needs thottling or limits, when you can just overload your network and overcharge your customers!

WTF uses over 5GB a month on their phone?

Seriously, has this EVER been an issue for anyone here? I'm asking because that's a shit-load of data coming across a phone.

Are you downloading ISOs or something? Via your phone? WTF for?

Look, I get the idea that its false advertising, unlimited damned sure should mean unlimited, but damn. 5GB? I don't know anyone who comes even remotely close to using that much per month on their iphone.

Re:For a price of course

[trailerparkcassanova]

A new Motorola V3xx that does HSDPA 6 at 3.6Mbps can be had for $80.00.

Re:For a price of course

[DrgnDancer]

But again, depending on your carrier if they catch you they'll charge you out the wazoo. The only thing really stopping Apple from implementing tethering in the US (3.0 had the feature built in) was AT&T. Technically nearly all the carriers forbid tethering without paying for the service, but it's harder to enforce on other phones. Basically, you're not supposed to tether phones unless you pay for the service (or your carrier is on of the few that allows it by default). The single source nature of the iPhone allows stricter enforcement of this rule on it than on other phones

Re:For a price of course

[Cryonix]

Where I live, DSL is a new commodity. For a long while I was using my cell as an only means of internet connectivity. There are still many areas that have no DSL (or equal) available. I'm sure they are among a minority, however it is still an unfortunate situation.

Re:For a price of course

[DrgnDancer]

I'd be amazed if people used that much data just on their phone, but remember that tethered phones are just routers for laptops. Sprint is actually advertising this as a feature for their new 4G Android phone. You pay an extra $10 a month for unlimited 4G data, and then another $30 on top of that for a service that lets you use the phone as a WAP. Bam, your phone is now the Internet hub for your home. Since you can connect up to 4 computers to that service I'd imagine you can expect people to download A LOT more than 5GB across such a setup.

Personally I think you'd be nuts to use that kind of setup (it essentially required your cell phone to in the house, and turned on for anyone to have Internet access), but Sprint seems to think someone wants it. I guess if the 4G service is reliable in your area, and you don't have anybody who might want to use the Internet when you're not personally at home it might be a way to save a few bucks. It might also be useful for some mobile setups like blood mobiles or portable stores that want to process credit cards.

Re:For a price of course

[ckaminski]

SMS originally was free. I was using it for paging alerts in 2001/2002 and never paid a dime. Something between the loss of my datacenter job in 2002 and my gaining a new one in 2005, they'd started charging for it. It may have "cost" something on paper (.08?) but they never billed it (Verizon) - perhaps because they couldn't.

Once they saw usage go up, it made sense to charge for it - it was a profit-making revenue stream. I'd have done the same. I don't think I'd be as greedy as the telco motherfuckers, but hey, that's just me. If you don't like the extra $20/m, don't get it.

What I don't like is the phone company not supporting a total blockage on SMS. I don't want SMS at all - and I don't want people texting me to cost me $.20 a pop. Last I tried with Verizon, they wouldn't block incoming at all.

Re:For a price of course

[commodore64_love]

Actually I think somebody like grandma should have service like I've got - a mere $15 a month with ~100 GB cap. Or maybe even less - Netscape Dialup is only $7. If she only reads email then that would work just fine.

Re:For a price of course

[Darth Sdlavrot]

That's interesting.

When I asked the T-Mobile rep last time they were here at my place of employment they told me they had nothing like that.

What does it tether with? The iPod Touch does not have Bluetooth, so I'd need 802.11 in order to work with both my iPod and my laptop.

Re:For a price of course

[Altus]

If you lived along it wouldn't be that bad. Depending on the actual speeds and latency of course.

Re:For a price of course

[commodore64_love]

What about Cable or Satellite Internet? Those would provide a solution.

Re:For a price of course

[Gruturo]

As for cost, I don't think wireless will ever be as fast or cheap as wired. There's only ONE radio spectrum and it has to be shared with everyone within the cell tower's zone. In contrast the wired internet has an infinite number of spectrums, limited only by the number of wires laid down.

Actually a huge number of initiatives, technologies and effort are thrown every day at the problem.

First of all, reclaiming chunks of spectrum previously allocated to other uses (analog TV being just one example. There are also chunks allocated for military usage and mostly unused since the '70's adnd stuff like this (note: talking mostly out of my ass here, since, living in Italy, I only have a vague idea, mostly from google news headlines and a few tech blogs, of what the USA spectrum allocation looks like and what is being done. I just know the most general details))

Then new, more robust and efficient data encodings are created, perfected and improved all the time (like the 64QAM in the latest HSDPA, not to mention next-gen standards like LTE

Finally, operators also split the network in ever-shrinking cells, esp. in crowded areas. The smaller the cell, the more often the same frequency can be reused, maybe just a few hundred meters away

All this without taking into account further improvements like MIMO which I'm not even qualified to assign a category other than "some kind of antenna black magic"

I do believe that wireless *will* eventually end up as fast and/or as cheap as wired given enough time and effort thrown at the problem. After all, running all those wires costs a lot, and the convenience of not being tethered (pun intended) transcends simple economic considerations.

(Yes, wires and fiber will *also* keep improving so at any given time they would technically be able to carry more data. Then again, our ISPs are not going to offer us anywhere near that capacity for a sane price :-) )

Re:For a price of course

[MikeFM]

Which is why I'd rather they let me tether to my iPad. More data for less money. I can anyway but THAT is really the only reason to jailbreak IMO so if they'd just let me do it it'd simplify my life. Or they could just let my buy a USB device for accessing their network via my laptop (or rather my wife's net book) for $15/mo without a contract and I'd be just as happy. Or hey offer Mifi for the same price. So far with the iPad 3G I've only used about half my $15/mo plan in the couple weeks I've had it and I use it every day. What the heck are you people doing that use more than 5GB anyway? Don't you have wifi at home and work?

Re:For a price of course

[Lumpy]

My 8Gig iPod touch has Bluetooth... how old is your iPod?

Re:For a price of course

[AltairDusk]

If you're smart about it and don't use tethering for downloading large files and torrents they won't catch you. It's excessive bandwidth usage that sets off the alarms. If it's even probable you could use that much data from the phone itself they generally have to assume that's the case.

Re:For a price of course

[AltairDusk]

What's sad is that they can legally add a disclaimer at the bottom to preclude "unlimited data" from being false advertising. In an ideal situation we could hold them to delivering what they promise and if they wanted to scream unlimited then they had better provide unlimited regardless of what the tiny text at the bottom says.

Re:For a price of course

[Skuld-Chan]

Sadly for some reason the carriers here in the US (and I've heard its worse in Canada) take the nickel and dime approach to services - they literally have a line item for every feature on my phone, and how much I can use of each feature.

And they get away with it too because every other carrier does it too.

Re:For a price of course

[Luke has no name]

I pay $5/mo on Virgin Mobile for 1000 texts. Not too shabby. Your point and parent's points are still valid; telcos find every possible way to fee your ass.

I still wait for the day mobile data plans are offered without phone plans, e.g. have a PDA with broadband connection ONLY and I can use Ekiga/Skype, mobile web, etc. for one low price.

Re:For a price of course

[Paranatural]

The real issue is that it literally costs the Telecos nothing at all to provide texting services. There's some extra space in the overhead with the cell phones communications with the towers. That's where they put the text messages (And thus the reason for the limit of the text messages length)

So yeah, they could provide it for free. Easily. And eyah, they could charge for it. And do so.

Issue is that if you don't have a plan, it can cost you, the consumer, up to $.50 a text message, and outrageously more for texting between countries.

Why has the price gone from $0.00 up to these rates? Because no one can stop them. All the telecos raise their rates to match each other.

This is why the tea partiers/free market fanatics are so very much misguided.

In their ideal world, a service costing companies nothing at all and providing a good service to their customers would be free. Lambs would jump though meadows and butterflies would fly and the laughter of children could be heard.

However, such utopias can never exist. In the real world, what happens is all the telecos raise their rates together, and screw the consumers. Do they get together and plan it out? No. They don't have to. There needs to be no communication. They observe each other, get the idea, and cooperate to fuck over the working man. People are basically cattle, and don't resist.

The free market they envision would simply lead to tyranny by corporations. Oh, sure, some say 'Well there would be some government reglation to stop that sort of thing'. But in the flowery pictures of their little utopias they present, the government would be too small, too weak, and too dependent on these companies to actually have any meaningful authority over them.

The massive overcharging for texting is simply an example of this.

Re:For a price of course

[blackC0pter]

As a poor college student, I setup my ATT phone to block SMS inbound and outbound (just call up the carrier and tell them you want it blocked). It worked great and I saved money until I realized any girl that is interested in you mainly wants to flirt via text. Needless to say, as soon as I discovered that I reactivated my SMS service very quickly.

Re:For a price of course

[gutnor]

Yeah - and soon there will be a memo from big telco how "Android makes pirate and other license abuser life easier than iPhone OS"

Re:For a price of course

[elrous0]

Do it twice and Steve Jobs disappears you. You end up on the island with the engineers who lost their iPhone prototypes and some journalists who criticized the iPad.

Re:For a price of course

[sjames]

Because unlimited means without limits? If that's not what they want to offer then the lying weasels should quit saying it! Yes, my electricity is metered and they charge for each KWh. They do not, however, advertise unlimited electricity for just $30/month.

They do this to make sure the consumer can't make informed choices. If the offer honestly said 5GB for $30/month and someone else honestly said 6GB for $40/month, guess what consumers would do? However, if they call 5GB "unlimited" They look better than the competition that actually offers more and the best the competition can do is join the liars club to look as good by calling 6GB unlimited (even though they're actually better and prefer not to lie).

These people make the stereotypical used car salesman look like an angel.

Re:For a price of course

[BigSes]

Its no better with Verizon. Same greedy bullshit, my Droid data plan is $30 a month and I pay an extra $10 just to have 500 out-of-Verizon text messages to my few friends left on AT&T. Its easier to pay $10 for 500 and use 250 than it is to pay .10 per and need to use 250 and get screwed. Text messsaging is one of the biggest rackets in all of cellular communications.

Re:For a price of course

[Issarlk]

What's a "girl" ?

Re:For a price of course

[shambalagoon]

There's an app for that. It's called Beejive. Last I checked it was $10, and if you and someone else had it, you could text each other as much as you want for free. When a text message comes in, an alert pops up on the phone and there's a sound or buzz. Then you jump into a IM chat screen and chat like that. I think I read that you can send text messages to phone numbers of people who don't have Beejive, but I'm not quite sure how that works.

That said, it leaves a LOT to be desired. You need to be logged into a chat network such as Jabber, and you get automatically logged out every few days. It's also horribly slow on the iPhone 3g, oversensitive to flipping, jumps to the middle of an ongoing chat when it flips, and has been somewhat buggy in the past. But my wife and I text on it daily for free, while her SMS bill for texting with her sister is $30/month.

Re:For a price of course

[Wiarumas]

Sounds similar to Meebo, which is free... and utilizes various IM clients (gchat, aim, msn, etc).

Re:For a price of course

[massysett]

Have you tried recently? A few years ago I blocked all incoming text messages on Verizon Wireless.

Re:For a price of course

[s73v3r]

That still depends on whether or not your carrier allows it. iPhoneOS 3 already allows tethering, its AT&T that doesn't allow it on their network.

Re:For a price of course

[s73v3r]

If DSL just got there, I'm guessing they aren't rolling in Cable. And satellite is highly unreliable and extremely slow.

Re:For a price of course

[sonnejw0]

AT&T offers SMS/MMS/Data blocking on an account. In fact, it's even at online check-out on their webpage. It asks if you want to disable SMS, MMS, or Data from any line so that you won't get charged and won't receive any of those things. You can also opt to pay per use, or to buy a set amount or an "unlimited" amount. Can't miss it.

Re:For a price of course

[sbeckstead]

Ok I'll take the flamebait.... Because when Android came out on Verizon you couldn't actually use that connection and still talk on the phone. I don't like single tasking devices Multitasking is great unless you can't do the two most important things you want a smart phone to do at the same time. So I'll wait and be able to tether my computer and get a phone call at the same time. Android may be coming to ATT then it will be valuable. T-Mobile is useless as it has no connectivity in my neck of Los Angeles.

Re:For a price of course

[s73v3r]

Because they told me unlimited DATA. If they didn't want me to use 1000 gigs a month, then they shouldn't have offered that.

Re:For a price of course

[Darth Sdlavrot]

Old enough not to have Bluetooth. ;-)

I.e. it's a First Gen iPod Touch.

I'm not rich enough to burn $100 bills to light my cigars; I'm not rich enough to throw away a $400 iPod Touch. (Yeah, yeah, sell it on Craig's List and just buy an iPhone.)

Re:For a price of course

[sbeckstead]

49.95 no contract 99.00 dollar hardware at datajack.com.

Re:For a price of course

[yabos]

This has nothing to do with the iPhone. It has everything to do with AT&T. Tethering is available in most other countries with the 3.x version of iPhone and has been for something like 8-10 months. My subscription with Rogers in Canada allows tethering, 6GB/month for $30

Re:For a price of course

[IronChef]

I recently found an interesting article on SMS pricing.

http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/2864

Short version of the link: SMS messages are not a "Title II Telecom Service" like phone calls and so are exempt from a lot of pricing regulations. Price fixing would still be illegal though, and the DOJ did an investigation, but dropped it. Even though the carriers increase rates in lockstep I am sure it is very hard to prove that shenanigans are happening.

Re:For a price of course

[cayenne8]

"My biggest complaint is the market's price fixing on text messages. There is no way in hell that unlimited texting warrants a $30 price tag when the iPhone comes with a $30 unlimited data plan. Yes, you can play FPS, stream music, videos, browse the web, etc, but those 8 digit text messages are somehow made separate and charged at the same price?"

Well, while I have been texting a LOT more than in the past...I usually just email. Doesn't cost a cent extra, the iPhone notifies you when you get one...etc. Just slightly less instant that txt for me...

Re:For a price of course

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you live in New York, where 5GB is the most you can possibly ever pull down in a month due to network issues and speeds. That makes it unlimited! Who needs thottling or limits, when you can just overload your network and overcharge your customers!

WTF uses over 5GB a month on their phone?

Seriously, has this EVER been an issue for anyone here? I'm asking because that's a shit-load of data coming across a phone.

Are you downloading ISOs or something? Via your phone? WTF for?

Look, I get the idea that its false advertising, unlimited damned sure should mean unlimited, but damn. 5GB? I don't know anyone who comes even remotely close to using that much per month on their iphone.

You're right, no one would ever, say, want to listen to Pandora for 3 hours a day (30 days/month * 3 hours/day * 60 minutes/hour * 1 MB/minute = 5400MB > 5GB) or worse, get the same amount of music off YouTube. Seriously, 5GB is not that much data.

Re:For a price of course

[Aquitaine]

Uh, you can stop using text messaging.

Doesn't cost me anything (extra) to send an email from my PDA, though I don't have an SMS plan and so that does cost me something.

Exactly who is it who ought to decide what should be free and what shouldn't?

I love when smartphone packages are singled out as evidence of free market villainy, since they're something to which you are apparently entitled. I guess it didn't cost the phone companies anything to build those cell towers, to navigate the byzantine bureaucracies to get permission to build the towers, and to pay for the software and hardware engineering and design for SMS interfaces? Or is that the 'literally nothing' you're talking about?

I'll grant that there are some problems with a boilerplate free market solution where phone companies are concerned (both wired and wireless) since the airwaves are considered to belong to everybody and someone has to be responsible for doling them out. The usual free market answer of 'more competition' only helps a little bit -- there are definitely cheaper alternatives than AT&T, remember; it's just that we all like our nice iPhones and are complaining about the provider to whom we knowingly married ourselves for so long as they have the exclusive rights to the iPhone.

I'm an AT&T iPhone customer and I jailbreak my phone so that I can use PDANet. The minute I can switch my iPhone to a provider who won't charge me to tether, I'm gone. In the meantime, the convenience of having a single device to house my portable movie and music collection as well as handle all my contacts, email, and phone calls is worth the nuisance of jailbreaking, particularly when AT&T ignores most everyone who tethers in this manner. It was my decision to buy the phone, my decision to sign up with AT&T, and my decision not to use SMS. I don't see how government can regulate a better scenario here without also damaging the kind of innovation you need for us to have iPhones in the first place.

Re:For a price of course

[kickme_hax0r]

Because I don't live in the US, so my carrier doesn't suck and allowed me to tether as soon as 3.0 came out, for free.

Re:For a price of course

[CoffeeDog]

Well on my carrier my 6GB plan costs $30/month, the next cheapest option is only 500MB which I easily go over. I tether a lot from my phone to my netbook while on the bus commuting to watch streaming video. Very convenient and makes the hour commute much more pleasant. At times my phone's 3G throughput is even faster than my ADSL at home when Bell decides to throttle my connection into oblivion because my roommates start up a BitTorrent. I just tether to my desktop and while the latency is terrible for online games, I can still browse at a reasonable rate.

Re:For a price of course

[rubypossum]

Actually, market forces are at work here perfectly. You are apparently valuing the service enough to pay for it. Therefore it has a fair price. Just because something is free doesn't mean you shouldn't sell it to somebody else for a profit. You sir, don't appear to know much about business. Besides, theoretically the whole system is free after it's set up - that still doesn't count the HUGE capital investment somebody had to make to build the damn thing. I think the important thing to remember is that businesses are out to make a profit, which means taking in more money than you put out. There's nothing immoral about that. If they charged $25 a text message then I would not use their service, but that's up to them.

Oh and I use T-Mobile anyway, btw. Which is $59 for unlimited everything. And it works great for my N900, which isn't locked down by the bastard Jobs. I'm voting with my feet against these pigs. Down with AT&T & Apple. Arrrr! Matey!

Re:For a price of course

[cheese_wallet]

This is why the liberal democrats/government regulation fanatics are so very much misguided. In their world, they are freely entitled to the fruits of your labor, effectively punishing you for being productive.

Re:For a price of course

[mgblst]

What does that have to do with anything? The cost of a good rarely has anything to do with the price.

This is what it is all about, the perception that you are being ripped off, that the telcos are getting your money for free.

It doesn't cost $0 to build and maintain the telecommunicaiton structure, that lets you send SMS for free, does it.

Fuck off with your victim attitude.

Nobody is being screwed, don't use the service, you don't have to. Oh, except that it is extremely useful to you, and you really want it, but for free.

Re:For a price of course

[zuperduperman]

> When they make an Android device with non-crap hardware

I guess you are trolling? Or living in some country with only the G1?

Android hardware far outclasses the iPhone right now. I can barely use my iPod Touch any more because the screen looks so faded and fuzzy compared to the crisp screen on the Nexus One. This isn't really a criticism of the iPhone, it's just a fact of Apple's yearly product cycle - a year is a long time in technology and their hardware are nearly a year out of date now. The software is one thing, but saying you can't use Android because of the *hardware* is really weird.

Re:For a price of course

[mattack2]

If by "pretty much all", you mean smartphones, then you have a valid point.

But if you mean phones in general, you're wrong. You can get prepaid phones (lower than $5/month minimum fee -- then of course you pay for minutes). Actually, I read an article today or yesterday that even things like Blackberries were available on prepaid plans nowadays (though not anywhere near that low priced)...

Re:For a price of course

[mjwx]

makes no sense.

Standard Apple Market speak. I will have to start calling it MacSpeak.

It's already "later".

Indeed, the US Iphone audience may finally get the functionality that I've enjoyed in Nokia phones in Australia for 4 years, or from my Android phone from day 1.

Re:For a price of course

[rat7307]

Have you used a Desire at all?

Re:For a price of course

[Fjandr]

Especially since they use the free space of an always-on OOB control channel that is required for all cellular operation in the first place. It's hardware and a channel that is already required, and text messaging doesn't impact it at all and costs virtually nothing to administer. What they charge is nearly 100% profit.

Re:For a price of course

[Zen Hash]

What I want is an inexpensive basic phone that I can use to tether my existing devices.

Use something like this to search for discontinued phones your carrier has offered which support the DUN bluetooth profile and whatever other criteria you are looking for. Then check eBay for that model. Even if you want to use it for internet access on a device that only supports wifi and not bluetooth or USB, then you should be able to find a phone for under $100 running WinCE where you can find custom software to use it as a wifi access point. I've never needed it myself, but I've heard the HTC Mogul/XV6800 is a pretty cheap device which can serve that purpose well.

Re:For a price of course

[lemoon]

eher, unlimited data.... Don't the rumor read that iPhone 4 will support multitasking? Learn more iphone news and tips, turn to this iphone column: http://www.ifunia.com/iphone-column/index.html

Re:For a price of course

[MojoStan]

My biggest complaint is the market's price fixing on text messages. There is no way in hell that unlimited texting warrants a $30 price tag when the iPhone comes with a $30 unlimited data plan. Yes, you can play FPS, stream music, videos, browse the web, etc, but those 8 digit text messages are somehow made separate and charged at the same price?

If you include Sprint in "the market," then the price of text messages (when you have a data plan) is not "fixed." Sprint's $30 data plan (which does seem to be price-fixed) includes unlimited text messages. Too bad they don't have the "coolest" phones right now.

Re:For a price of course

[theaveng]

reclaiming chunks of spectrum previously allocated to other uses (analog TV being just one example).

Say what?. I'm going to assume you're in North America. The analog TV spectrum can not be reclaimed. Why? Because it's currently being used by the *digital* TV spectrum. Only channels 52 to 69 were released for other purposes - mostly police and ambulance emergency radios. Channels 2 to 51 are still allocated.

Then new, more robust and efficient data encodings are created

Yes but the Nyquist Theorem(?) shows that these encodings have (mostly) reached the maximum data packing possible. It's the same reason why Telephone modems never moved past 56k - they already hit the theoretical maximum for a 4 kilohertz wide line. Likewise the current space assigned to phones/wireless is already full or very close to full.

operators also split the network in ever-shrinking cells, esp. in crowded areas.

But the cells will never shrink as small as a fiber optic, where you could literally run give each home a full 0 to ~10,000 gigahertz spectrum, and no need to share it. Cells will never reach the point of one cell/antenna per home - it wouldn't be cost effective

Re:For a price of course

[Alexvthooft]

I don't get it, why am I getting Trolled for this remark. It is the truth...

Re:For a price of course

[Cryonix]

There is only one cable co in the area, and they don't run past the city limit. As for Sat links, the cost/benefit isn't effective.

What is the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the point to tether on such a crappy network? It is often difficult to place a simple call with AT&T in NYC...

Re:What is the point?

[Anonymusing]

Yes, but there is the whole rest of the United States... AT&T's coverage does not suck everywhere.

Re:What is the point?

[imamac]

Indeed. AT&T coverage has actually been very good in the places I have lived in the US. In fact, in my current city, it has the best coverage of all the providers.

Re:What is the point?

[Pojut]

Apple is gearing up for the move to Verizon.

You sure about that?

Re:What is the point?

[Anonymusing]

That's not just AT&T. I have had both AT&T and Verizon -- even at the same time, when I had separate business and personal accounts -- and the coverage issue was equally sucky (just different at any given point in time). You learned when one phone was going to be better than another.

And the phones have a lot to do with it. The iPhone internal antenna must royally suck, because I can stand next to another AT&T customer who has a regular dumbphone: they might have four bars of signal strength while I only have one or two. Yeah, I've got antenna envy.

Re:What is the point?

[DNS-and-BIND]

What's the point of living in the "whole rest of the United States"? It sucks out there, have you been there? The only other places worth going to are LA and maybe SFO. Educated, urbane people can live their whole lives without coming in contact with the uncultured areas. There is some nice natural beauty in a few places too, but then you have to talk to the inhabitants.

Re:What is the point?

[Duradin]

Wait, NYC, LA, and SFO are "cultured" now? Is that the new word for gang infested and crime ridden?

"but then you have to talk to the inhabitants." Pot, kettle, rest left as an exercise to the reader.

Re:What is the point?

[DebianDog]

Yeah but when you live there is sucks. When I see those AT&T coverage commercials I SCREAM!!!! (well it is more for the wife since she has an iPhone)

Where I live I can't even make an AT&T phone call within 10 miles of my house, yet my internet is provided via Verizon Wireless Broadband.

I pray the iPhone come out on Verizon soon...

Re:What is the point?

[Anonymusing]

I have been there. I moved out of NYC awhile ago because I missed (a) natural silence, (b) fresh air, and (c) nights lit solely by the moon and stars.

Re:What is the point?

[intheshelter]

Assuming, of course, that the number of bars between different models of phones is a useful measurement. I kind of doubt you can put much stock in this comparison because the metric for showing how many bars on a particular manufacturer's phone probably differs enough to make this measurement irrelevant.

Re:What is the point?

[DrgnDancer]

Apparently the early 3Gs had very badly placed internal antennas. My wife has a 3G, and when she was in Boston recently she and a friend were amused to notice that they had the same phone. He was less amused to discover that she was getting 5 bars and he was getting 1. A little online research showed that her phone was a later model, from after they did a minor (but important apparently) redesign on the antenna.

Re:What is the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

As one of the "inhabitants", yes it does suck out here.

  - Because of the "educated, urbane" folk who can't figure out when not to get in a kayak and go out in the ocean or put on flip-flops and start hiking the AT without any preparation, then eat up my local tax dollars trying to rescue their asses.
  - Because of the "educated, urbane" folk who move up because they like the quiet, then insist on expensive "improvements" to make the environment more like what they had before, and ruin the very things they moved here for.
  - Because of the "educated, urbane" folk who come to beautiful beaches, don't clean up their "educated, urbane" garbage, and insist on going home with "a few souvenirs" that were living creatures when they found them that they'll just throw away once they get home, and end up ruining the beach.
  - Because of the "educated, urbane" folk who bring their speedboats onto the lakes, ruin the shoreline with their wakes, occasionally kill a canoeist or kayaker, make massive noise at all hours, throw garbage and spew oil overboard, and refuse to clean their boats bringing invasive milfoil and other species that screw up the lakes and cost a lot of money to try and mitigate.

Stop coming. If you want city conveniences, that's what a city is for. Buy picture books of the pretty places and put them on your educated, urbane coffee tables, and stop ruining them by showing up and going off the trails to find "that special spot" that 12,000 people a year have found before you did, and ruined in the process.

Re:What is the point?

[Windows Breaker G4]

So that you can further cripple it but charge people more while doing so

Re:What is the point?

[Lumpy]

1/3rd the population of Chicago would easily kicks the ass of the LA+SFO population.

Hello the #2 largest city in the USA is here in the midwest and the culture and life there kicks the utter crap out of LA.

Re:What is the point?

[Skuld-Chan]

Its gotten much better, but they still drop the call if you switch from 3G area to edge (which happens a lot), and the service doesn't work so well inside buildings where I live.

Re:What is the point?

[Anonymusing]

True, the bar infographic may be useless.

Call quality is less subjective, though. Same room, same carrier, different phones: mine is noticeably more garbled than on that dumbphone I mentioned.

Re:What is the point?

[pablodiazgutierrez]

I'm Spanish, but I've lived in LA, NYC and SF. While NYC and SF are definitely nicer places to visit, I prefer LA to live. For once, people in LA generally acknowledge that their city is ugly, trashy, fake and decadent. Because of that, they don't tend to engage in futile arguments about which city's sights, food, lifestyle and cultural offerings are superior. Sure, there are those people but they'll rarely venture out of Santa Monica or "The Valley (TM)". On the other hand, when I go to a home party in SF, I keep hearing comments that make me cringe. Like this fucking hipster whose puppy fell from a bunk bed (yes..) and broke two legs: "Thank GOD we live in the city and I could find a 24h pet hospital!". Anyway, I won't comment on NYC since you're in Chicago and are probably familiar :).

My point: Ok, go Chicago! I like my cities cheap and uncouth.

Re:What is the point?

[pablodiazgutierrez]

By the way, according to Wikipedia, Chicago is only the 3rd largest city in the US, significantly behind LA.

Re:What is the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't agree that AT&T coverage has been good in the places where imamac has lived? Do you know him personally?

Re:What is the point?

[puto]

Spanish as in Mexican? Spanish denotes being born in Spain, or having parents from Spain.

iPhone or AT&T?

[ShadyG]

I have no doubt the device can easily support it, and may even have the software installed by default in the OS. The question is will it or won't it be disabled and hidden for US consumers by contract with AT&T?

Re:iPhone or AT&T?

[jo_ham]

It's *already* in the iPhone OS - my 3G tethers out of the box here in the UK - no jailbreaking or extra software. This is entirely an AT&T limitation in the US.

Re:iPhone or AT&T?

[Sockatume]

The feature's been in the OS for ages. The discovery is a special message prompting the user to call AT&T on a particular number to enable the tethering service, which suggests AT&T may provide a mechanism for enabling said tethering service.

Re:iPhone or AT&T?

[carlhaagen]

The iPhone/OS has *always* tethered. It has always been a case of each operator either allowing it or, as in the case of all US operators, just not allowing it at all. I've had tethering via my Swedish operator since day 1 (and I was gifted my iPhone at the day of its Swedish release in mid-2008), and as a related side note, all Swedish operators have always allowed tethering - because we are not suffering an infrastructure problem here, and the Swedish operators, unlike their American counterparts, realize that more traffic used by customer = more money. If I'm not mistaken, this stance is also taken by pretty much all European operators. The "tethering doesn't "work"" problem appears by all accounts to be isolated to the US.

Re:iPhone or AT&T?

[zach_the_lizard]

The capability is there from the get go, but there is a set of files, IIRC, that describe each carrier and what features to allow. With a jailbroken phone, you can change that and allow tethering. This is why,say, UK users can tether but US users cannot.

Re:iPhone or AT&T?

[Petron]

Yet, I have a HTC Tilt (Tytn2) through AT&T and live in the US...

AT&T allows me to tether. It costs $30/mo and limited to 6gb per month.

Re:iPhone or AT&T?

[jo_ham]

Yes, it seems crazy that they limit it by particular phone, but such is the way. It is definitely not an Apple limitation.

Re:iPhone or AT&T?

[erpbridge]

Seeing it active in the beta doesn't exactly mean that the carrier will include support in the final version. For a short time in the iPhone OS 3.0 beta (a week or two), Tethering was active, even though ATT had not officially acknowledged support.

We all know tethering is available in the final OS 3.x code for all carriers in the world, and that ATT has refused to activate iPhone users to tether, while other phones on ATT can tether fine. Tethering for ATT users can be activated in the OS via jailbreak (as well as wireless tethering with utilities such as MyWi), indicating that a special contract agreement with ATT is not required, just flipping certain switches in the iPhone OS and updating the carrier files.

Re:iPhone or AT&T?

[lwsimon]

I don't get why they're acting like this is something with OS4 - OS3 supported it fine, it was disabled via a carrier file from AT&T. For a long time (up to 3.0.2, I think), you could simply install a hacked carrier file and use tethering on AT&T. I suspect the Beta testers just have a modified carrier file that lets them test all the features, not just the ones currently for sale.

Why?

[ledow]

If a company has a device that doesn't support tethering, why would you buy their products if you want to tether it? Why hype-up that they've "finally" included the damn thing, when it's been a standard feature on phones since GPRS and Bluetooth were available (my phone does it and that was released in 2003)?

If a network does not support tethering for your particular device, why would you join them if you one day hoped to tether?

There are other companies, other devices, other networks that *do* support tethering. Stop hoping for half-arsed solutions, trying to "jailbreak" your phone to do that, etc. Just buy one of the cheaper, easier, simpler devices that supports it out of the box without getting in your way or voiding your warranty. The companies that make those devices obviously know what you want and, crucially, will have been doing it properly, for longer.

And, besides, phone tethering is old-hat anyway. It costs literally a few pounds / dollars to connect a PC to a 3G always-on connection on a decent tariff in the country of your choice. Most laptops have options to have it built-in, or external devices can be bought for less than a meal-for-two. There are PAYG and contract data tariffs that work out more than cheap enough (providing you don't roam internationally on them, but that's the same for anything). They won't interfere with the use of your phone, won't be tied to your keeping a stupidly-expensive phone, are designed for the job and don't have the security / network-lock / price / etc. issues that tethering to an iPhone would.

Stop being surprised when years-old features are suddenly "added" to products that should have had them (and technically *could* have had them for absolutely no price difference whatsoever) in the first place.

Re:Why?

[Pojut]

Stop hoping for half-arsed solutions, trying to "jailbreak" your phone to do that, etc. Just buy one of the cheaper, easier, simpler devices that supports it out of the box without getting in your way or voiding your warranty. The companies that make those devices obviously know what you want and, crucially, will have been doing it properly, for longer.

This is my primary problem with the iPhone. I shouldn't have to hack my phone to do basic stuff.

Re:Why?

[scrote-ma-hote]

The iPhone already supports tethering. For all it's issues, Vodafone NZ has supported this (for free, but with crappy data caps) since the 3gs came out.

Re:Why?

[jo_ham]

Talk to AT&T about that - in the rest of the world, the iPhone has tethering as a basic non-jailbreak feature. The lack of tethering on the iPhone is the US is *entirely* AT&T's limitation, which is strange since they allow it on other phones on their network (of course, those phones are not as popular).

I didn't have to hack my iPhone to get tethering.

Re:Why?

[dskzero]

Well, that's pretty much the deal with iPhones.

Either you hack it, or you're left to play with whatever Apple and your phone company wants you to do with it. In this case, the problem is Apple for playing along, and the phone company for... i'm not even sure what they are doing by locking it. Saving money, i would guess.

Down here in Venezuela we don't really have that problem, as our phone companies apparently don't give a damn about what we do with our lines, but we're cut short by the crapiness of the network. Apparently, in a highway in the middle of nothing is a wonderful spot to navigate via the fabled 3G, but somewhere in the suburbs isn't.

Re:Why?

[ducomputergeek]

Technically it's had the ability for a while now. I used to tether with my iPhone over bluetooth with my MBP for a short while when version 3.0 was released and before they required signed IPPC files from the carriers. I know a number of people in Europe who are able to tether because their provider allows for it. Here in the US, it's all square on AT&T for the reason tethering is not allowed.

I have a 3G card from the company (actually we have 5 of them) with a contract up in July. Those are $60 a pop for 5GB of download. We've already replaced three with iPad 3G's for me and President of the company and one roving for whomever is on helpdesk that night. Most people in the company already have an iPhone. Hell even if it was $20 a mont extra to allow tethering, we'd give the employees an extra $20 every month to pay for it. Much better than the 3G cards.

Re:Why?

[OzPeter]

Talk to AT&T about that - in the rest of the world, ........

One day the US consumers will wake up and relize that they they do not have the best phone system in the world or even a decent one. However I am pretty sure that the required dose of reality that will bring about such an epiphany is much greater than the FDA approved daily dosage for American citizens

Re:Why?

[rcastro0]

> in the rest of the world, the iPhone has tethering as a basic non-jailbreak feature

Not in the whole rest of the world. Not here with Claro in Brazil, at least.

Re:Why?

[Trashman]

You make very good points. And I agree with you that you should vote with your dollars. Unfortunately, your comment doesn't address the reality of the market forces and competition between the big 4 telcos in the US.

The reality is: There is no competition.

1. Look at the txt messaging rates between the big four. They basically charge the same rate. when one raises their price, the others follow shortly thereafter.

2. Look at the ETF's for the (usually, 2 year) contracts you sign. they're all very high. so high in fact, that they don't really reflect the unsubsidized cost of the device which is the reason the ETF exists. And as with TXT mgs rate, when one raises it, the others follow.

3. Verizon I believe was the first to require a data plan if you wanted to get a smartphone. at&t later made that a requirement. (I'm not sure about T-moble and sprint but they probably have a similar mandate, if they're not working on on behind the scenes and haven't announced it yet.)

PAYG is not a solution for some, as the device you want to use may be not be "authorized" by carrier.

Re:Why?

[UnknowingFool]

There was an interesting BusinessWeek article about the blessing and the curse that AT&T got when it got the iPhone. It was a blessing as it got many new, exclusive customers and moved itself into the front of US cellphone carriers. The curse was that the capabilities of the iPhone was overwhelming their data network. Part of the problem was that users of the iPhone were actually using it to surf the web like they would at home and the proliferation of apps meant that iPhone users could be constant 3G usage when they were not surfing whether they were syncing data or apps.

I am guessing this is the main reason that tethering hasn't been allowed. AT&T's network would be in more serious trouble if it allowed it at this point. While this affects AT&T's network now, it will become more of a problem for all carriers as more and more consumers are buying smart phones. If Verizon got exclusivity with the iPhone everyone right now would be complaining of the same issues of Verizon.

Re:Why?

[Sechr Nibw]

Why hype-up that they've "finally" included the damn thing, when it's been a standard feature on phones since GPRS and Bluetooth were available (my phone does it and that was released in 2003)?

I don't think you know what "standard feature" really means. It has been an available feature, possibly a common, or much sought-after feature, but not standard. That's like saying (cue car analogy) an aux input on a car stereo is a standard feature. Don't get me wrong, I think that if you're paying for a data plan on a cell phone, it should have the capability of being tethered, most likely at an additional fee.

Re:Why?

[jo_ham]

Pff! Brazils are clearly nuts, not a country!

(ok, so not everywhere else in the world, but in many locations).

Re:Why?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

The second Americans figure out that things aren't as good here as it is in other countries...

We just went through a year and a half of healthcare debates and no one got really upset that we pay out the nose for 2nd rate care.

Do you really think that we'll give the same level of caring to lousy cellular service?

Re:Why?

[Sir_Lewk]

As a consumer, why should I give a shit "who's fault it is"? All that matters to me is that the problem exists.

Re:Why?

[Lumpy]

Only need to jailbreak it because AT&T disabled the tethering in the phone.

Oh look, all AT&T phones have tethering disabled! Chose to ignore that fact did you?

Re:Why?

[Lumpy]

Dont need to wake up. I already know we have the WORST cellphone system on the planet.

We have the worst internet infrastructure, etc...

Re:Why?

[jo_ham]

Because identifying the source of a problem is often the first step to solving it.

What if the iPhone's exclusivity deal with AT&T ends - as a consumer, are you going to assume that there won't be tethering on Verizon or whatever other provider it becomes available on?

We make a lot of noise about the "ignorant sheeple" and you are now promoting that as a tenable position as a consumer? You can't have it both ways. Maybe you don't care, but you are not the person I replied to - perhaps they do care to be informed?

Re:Why?

[Pojut]

I meant functions in general (such as installing non-app store apps), not tethering specifically (which, personally) I have no use for)

Re:Why?

[kimvette]

A Jailbreak and openssh is all you need to tether to the iPhone. :)

The issue is that people buy the iPhone based on advertised features, and it wasn't until Apple starting moving to disable tethering (quickly bypassed trivially) that they added the * and a footnote stating "in selective markets." The problem is if you pay full price for a fully (officially) unlocked iPhone, Apple still will not give you the ability to enable tethering; they refer you to the carrier. The carrier refers you to Apple. The situation has improved somewhat if you have an "official" Apple reseller as your provider, but if you own an Apple-unlocked phone and don't use their blessed providers, you are still SOL.

This problem began when AT&T and Apple in their joint press conferences announced each iPhone with all of its bells and whistles, and tethering being one of the key advanced features Apple was pushing (advanced? It is something other phone manufacturers have offered dating back to the late '90s by allowing the phones to be used as a modem, and later, many phone manufacturers allowed via a wired, wifi, or bluetooth network connection, passing the full bandwidth of the phone's data connection). Apple's yanking tethering pissed off a lot of customers who bought the iPhone with an advertised set of features, and then reneging after getting our money.

This is NO different than the Sony PS3/Other OS issue. Remember the outrage when Sony yanked the feature, and many had purchased the PS3 to be able to run PS3 games, play blu-ray, AND run a basic Linux box as part of their entertainment center? Sony removed a key feature that sold many units.

The difference here is Apple is FINALLY giving the functionality back after a lot of feedback over the last six months or so since they pulled it.

Stop being surprised when years-old features are suddenly "added" to products that should have had them (and technically *could* have had them for absolutely no price difference whatsoever) in the first place.

The iPhone 3G S had it originally, and Apple yanked it. They're just giving the feature back now.

Re:Why?

[kimvette]

Part of the problem was that users of the iPhone were actually using it to surf the web like they would at home and the proliferation of apps meant that iPhone users could be constant 3G usage when they were not surfing whether they were syncing data or apps.

. . . which is something AT&T has no right to complain about it because they have all along and continuing today advertising the iPhone for its web surfing, app downloading, and music and streaming capabilities. They wanted to offer the service and shouldn't be complaining about their explosive growth in market share overwhelming the networks; they ought to have planned upgrades accordingly since their whole goal was to expand their market share by leveraging the features of the iPhone being exclusive to AT&T.

I for one hope Android takes off in a big way; it will force AT&T and Apple to both open up their restrictions by a LOT. I think with Android's offering flash, allowing unrestricted tethering, making corporate deployments easier, and not blocking power users' installing what they want to install, Apple has to follow suit on at least some of those aspects. Bringing tethering back is just the first concession; Flash is sure to follow since everybody else is getting it, and Jobs knows HTML5 ain't quite here yet and Apple will have to allow people to use the features they expect now rather than 5-10 years from now.

Apple is currently a follower in the smartphone business. This is the beginning of their awakening. If Apple loses market share to Google's technology, you'll see Apple lighten up quite a bit, because as much as they like to "think different" and be quirky, ultimately their market share drives the bottom line - literally.

Re:Why?

[macslut]

"If a company has a device that doesn't support tethering, why would you buy their products if you want to tether it?"

Because almost everything else about the iPhone outweighs this one issue.

"If a network does not support tethering for your particular device, why would you join them if you one day hoped to tether?"

Not that I have a choice in the US with the iPhone, but if I did I would still have AT&T because:
1) Roll over minutes and in-network calling have resulted in a cheaper plan (than what I had with Verizon).
2) Customer service is much better (IMHO).
3) You can do voice and data at the same time.
4) GSM makes it easy to use my phone internationally (and cheaply with rented GSM SIMS)
5) Faster data speeds (in my geographic areas).
6) Dropped calls etc... hasn't been an issue for me (again in my geographic areas).
7) Free connectivity at AT&T hotspots, like Starbucks.

"Stop hoping for half-arsed solutions, trying to "jailbreak" your phone to do that, etc. "

There is no "try" there is only "do", and it's not half-assed. I have no problems with jailbreaking iPhones. It's always resulted in an iPhone that just worked better and enabled more features and functionality, including tethering and tether-sharing. I see no reason to ever stop, unless Apple eventually enables all the reasons why I jailbreak.

"And, besides, phone tethering is old-hat anyway. It costs literally a few pounds / dollars to connect a PC to a 3G always-on connection on a decent tariff in the country of your choice."

Ya...I'm not likely to change countries based solely on the price of 3G cards/dongles. Here in the US, with any carrier, 3G laptop service sucks on a price:utility ratio.

Re:Why?

[Skater]

To be fair, half the problem is that we have two (at least) networks with incompatible technology. As I understand it, most of the rest of the world uses just one standard. The companies could argue early on multiple networks happened because different companies were trying different technologies, and that's fine, but the fact that they've never standardized is quite annoying. If the companies were all cooperating, we could have far better coverage EVERYWHERE.

I recently got an iPhone, but I was torn between that and the Droid... my fiancee and I wanted to go with AT&T because that's what our families both have, so we'd need a cheaper plan. Since the iPhone is what AT&T offers, that's what we went with. Ideally we'd pick phones and carriers separately, but that's just not how it works here. (FWIW, we do like them, though I wish I could tether for the couple times a year I'd use it. I saw the website benm.at someone posted earlier, but it says the phone has to be unlocked... I don't think mine is.)

Re:Why?

[UnknowingFool]

I'm not saying AT&T has a right to complain. It really is their fault for underestimating the usage. What I'm saying is that it would have been no better with any other carrier had Apple selected them.

I for one hope Android takes off in a big way; it will force AT&T and Apple to both open up their restrictions by a LOT.

The problem is still AT&T's network can't handle the capacity. It won't matter if they get Android or not. Tethering is controlled by the carrier in a way. With Android you might be able to overcome some of the locks that Apple has placed at the behest of AT&T, but if AT&T may still lock out users in other ways regardless of which phone users have. At this point, I expect AT&T to start charging for tethering. Incidentally, you can tether the iPhone overseas like with Orange in UK. Although Orange advertises its iPhone data plan is unlimited, it is actually limited to 750MB. I'm not saying this is right, but just explaining the nature of things.

Apple is currently a follower in the smartphone business. This is the beginning of their awakening. If Apple loses market share to Google's technology, you'll see Apple lighten up quite a bit, because as much as they like to "think different" and be quirky, ultimately their market share drives the bottom line - literally.

Apple has never been at the forefront of technology, not with the iPod, not with the iPhone. What Apple is really good at doing is taking technology and adapting it to make consumer devices. Before the iPod, MP3 players were geek gadgets. While Apple did implement some neat things like the scroll wheel, the majority of their work was in simplifying and reducing the number of steps it took to do everyday tasks: Getting music onto the computer from CDs or online, getting music onto the device, etc.

With the iPhone, they decided that the interface should be more appliance-like than computer-like as Blackberry and MS designed their smart phones for business users not consumers. They eschewed the stylus and keyboard for an all touch interface. But they implemented multi-touch gestures to replace some of the necessary interface options. Again not the forefront of technology but for consumers, they placed more emphasis on usability than flexibility for their products.

Re:Why?

[Pointy_Hair]

Well said. When you go gadget shopping, it's rare to find a perfect match to what you want. So you take a second choice by measuring your patience against the effort required to make it do what you want.

Amazing how many folks go buy stuff then whine about what it could, should, might can do but won't. That really sucks the joy out of what you just bought and doesn't do anything for you that you didn't know about in advance.

Re:Why?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

most of the world minus Japan and a few other countries use GSM. Japan uses TDMA.

Re:Why?

[nurb432]

Right, i have a samsung impression with AT&T and can buy tethering, but i cant on my iphone... why? Not that i want to, but i also don't understand it.

Re:tomorrow, tomorrow

[imamac]

You mean tethering is always a day away...

And for only a small $40 a month charge

[elrous0]

No thanks, I'll just do it for free on Android.

Re:And for only a small $40 a month charge

[Fahrvergnuugen]

No idea why this was marked insightful. The OS has nothing to do with tethering, it's the carrier. The iPhone OS has officially supported tethering since 3.0, it's just that AT&T hasn't allowed it because they're afraid it will bring their fragile network to its knees.

If you use an Android phone to tether with AT&T or Verizon with an "unlimited" data plan, you are breaking their rules and stand to be charged extra for using the tethering feature.

Re:And for only a small $40 a month charge

[mjwx]

No idea why this was marked insightful. The OS has nothing to do with tethering, it's the carrier.

And Android using Proxoid, PDA.net or EasyTether gets around that one completely as it's all client side and requires no co-operation from the carrier what so ever. Do you now see why the GP was modded Insightful and unfairly modded Troll and Overrated (this mod needs to die, it's only use is to be abused).

If you use an Android phone to tether with AT&T or Verizon with an "unlimited" data plan, you are breaking their rules

But they cannot control it remotely, in fact they cant even tell as all the traffic is coming from the Android phone and Proxiod will happily change the header to read as if it were the Android Browser.

Performance

[Trip6]

I'm sure my porn downloads will FLY with this new free feature.

moderators - out of f'ing control

[Gary W. Longsine]

In what universe is the "flaimebait"? Rational moderators, please correct this.

Re:moderators - out of f'ing control

[Anonymous Coward]

Rational moderators, please correct this.

Someone mod this guy down for using the "R" word. We can't let this kind of attitude catch on around here.

Re:moderators - out of f'ing control

[elrous0]

We really need to stop giving Steve Jobs so many mod points.

Re:moderators - out of f'ing control

[sbeckstead]

Most universes I suspect, but in this universe at least it seems some moderators agree with you!

Didn't they already announce this?

[Anonymous Coward]

This doesn't sound new.

Sounds great!

[L4t3r4lu5]

Posted from a laptop tethered to a WinMobile device, which has supported tethering since release, over USB, Bluetooth, and WiFi (act as wireless router).

But yeah, you enjoy your "progress."

Re:Sounds great!

[Raverrn]

Posting from a laptop via (non-hacked, cracked, or broken) tethered American iPhone. You just need the right carrier files.

Re:Sounds great!

[thijsh]

WMWifiRouter FTW! Program works great, I get several Mbps over 3G with multiple laptops...
Only disadvantage I found: This requires massive power (3G, Wifi, CPU), even while charging my battery *slowly* drains.

Re:Sounds great!

[ckaminski]

And prey tell how do you do hat without jailbreaking your iPhone?

Oh wait, buy one from another country at 20% more. :-)

Re:Sounds great!

[Lumpy]

WM5 had a simple hack to enable tethering... WM6 removed that hack per the request of AT&T.

Only windows Mobile phones that still had tethering working were unbranded unlocked ones.

P.S. iphone has had tethering for over 2 years now. AT&T simply has it disabled.

Re:Sounds great!

[Overzeetop]

I guess, maybe. I just use my AT&T branded+locked Fuze with WMWiFiRouter and *bang* I'm surfing on my netbook. Even better, I have a legacy data plan that's $20/mo with 200 text messages and "unlimited" data. I use so little data on my phone nobody ever notices. Unfortunately, in getting my phone to connect via BT to my car, I fucked something up. Everything works perfectly, except for the ability to answer a call on the handset. I've tried 6-7 ROMs, including the official one. Since that's a pretty key feature of a phone, I'm giving up and getting an iPhone and a usb modem. If I hate it, I'll pick up an android handset and see if that sucks, too. It probably will...

Re:Sounds great!

[dlgeek]

I can't speak to gp, but my solution was to upgrade to iPhoneOS 3.0.0 and then never upgrade any further. 3.0.0 didn't require signed mobile config files, so you could simply load a mobile config from the web (like from help.benm.at) and it would enable tethering. I haven't upgraded any further to avoid losing this functionality.

Re:iPhone 4???

[jo_ham]

Apple hasn't sued anyone over the prototype. There was a criminal investigation, but that was handled by the police and the California authorities - Apple had nothing to do with that.

Something about posting clear evidence on the internet that you bought stolen property makes police departments pretty likely to come and bust you. A nice easy "crime solved" case for the statistics.

Re:That's nice

[grub]

I'll be impressed when it isn't AT&T supplying the tethering.

Come to Canada, it's Rogers! Impressed?

Re:That's nice

[Creepy]

Almost every carrier supports tethering on their phones, and AT&T has had unsupported tethering using the iPhone already. Of course, most charge massive, ridiculous additional fees. Verizon's is $50/month, I've heard Sprint is $60 with a 5GB limit, T-mobile doesn't support tethering last I checked, but hackers have made it possible with unlocked phones... note that the fees are per-phone and usually on top of data fees. Rumor has it AT&T will be $55 including data plan after initial rumors that it would be $55 on top of data plan. We can only hope - and hope it drives down market prices, because AT&T has bad signal strength at both my work and home. I personally don't care much about tethering, but my wife could use it for her startup business, if the price were right. Currently the business isn't growing fast enough to afford almost $2000 a year in phone expenses, though (after current expenses they are barely breaking even as it is - that should improve as the business expands).

Cue the iSlave apologists...en mass

[FreeUser]

If a company has a device that doesn't support tethering, why would you buy their products if you want to tether it? Why hype-up that they've "finally" included the damn thing, when it's been a standard feature on phones since GPRS and Bluetooth were available (my phone does it and that was released in 2003)?

NOOOO!!! Now you've done it! Asking a rhetorical questions founded on logic will bring Jobs' iSlaves out of the woodwork, screaming apologist tripe and nonsense defending the indefensible stance of their master and the crippled incapabilities of their jailed iPhones for the next 300 post. There goes the signal to noise ratio (and the neighborhood)...

Re:Cue the iSlave apologists...en mass

[fotbr]

Did it occur to you that most people that bought the iPhone don't really care about tethering?

Those that did, apparently found a way. Those that didn't care weren't really affected by not having it available.

Re:Cue the iSlave apologists...en mass

[swb]

There is a middle option, those that care, but not enough to hack/jailbreak.

When we were in Disneyworld a couple of months ago the expensive (overpriced?) hotel we stayed in had high speed internet but Disney demanded even MORE money to use it.

Tethering my laptop to my iPhone would have been great, and I run into this kind of situation once every couple of months where local internet access is either hosed, too restrictive or expensive for what I need to get done.

Overall it's a "would be nice" but isn't important or common enough to do anything about. I could always get a wireless data widget if it was important enough. My last experience with tethering using VZW was a mess -- a fairly expensive monthly upcharge, and the service didn't work very well. My phone would spontaneously reboot after about 20 minutes, which made me less likely to use it and thus made it more expensive.

And I know this sounds corny, but with iPhone I have less compelling need for my laptop. I can get a lot of things done without it.

Re:Cue the iSlave apologists...en mass

[whisper_jeff]

You mean the apologists who will point out that your quoted comment has no foundation in fact given that the iPhone has supported tethering for quite a long time? You mean the apologists who will point out that it's AT&T that doesn't support tethering with the iPhone on their network? You mean the apologists who just want people to bitch about legitimate complaints and direct their complaints at the right target?

Well then, consider me an apologist - if you're going to bitch about something, at least be knowledgeable enough to base your complaint on fact and ensure it's directed at the right target. Sorry (there's your apology), but there are literally millions of people around the world who have been able to tether with their (non-jailbroken) iPhone for quite a long time now. Just because AT&T treats you like crap doesn't mean all carriers (you know, those carriers who aren't based in the US) do the same thing.

Feel free to mod me troll. Feel free to write me off as an apologist. But, don't kid yourself - you know the complaints aren't vaguely founded in fact and are directed at the wrong target. Hate Apple all you want but at least try to base it on something legitimate. The tethering issue is a US-centered, AT&T-caused issue. It has nothing to do with Apple nor the iPhone, which has officially supported tethering for a long time.

Re:iPhone 4???

[virg_mattes]

I hate to take the piss out of you over this (who am I kidding? I'm quite pleased to do it...) but if the person they "set up" just handed to phone back to Apple there'd be no grounds for a suit. It's those who would take such a find and try to turn a profit off of it that would be at risk. Greed engenders risk; don't try to get what isn't yours to have and you won't run afoul of Apple's "dastardly plan", now will you?

Virg

Re:That's nice

[E IS mC(Square)]

>> T-mobile doesn't support tethering

Are you sure about that? I remember seeing a help page on their site on how to tether a BB - though it was 3 years back.

Re:iPhone 4???

[Sockatume]

iPhone OS Version 4. Not iPhone 4.

Re:iPhone 4???

[whisper_jeff]

How do people seriously think that was a marketing stunt? Are people seriously so blind to the realities of our world (namely that there are greedy fucks out there who will lie, cheat, and steal in order to make a buck) that they cannot see a crime for what it is? Hint: when a guy tries to hide and destroy evidence before the police get to them, that's a pretty clear sign that they did something wrong and they know it.

But, hey, keep pretending that a crime wasn't committed. Whatever you need to do to foster your hate of Apple.

The kicker is, if you disagree with choices Apple makes, there's lots of legitimate reasons to dislike the company. Making crap up just seems utterly pointless when there's actual legitimate reasons to dislike the company. People might disagree with you or not feel your reasons are sufficient to hate the company, but you'd at least be basing your opinion on something real.

Re:iPhone 4???

[mwvdlee]

Okay, the first lost iPhone4 may have been interpreted as a crime, the second one was either unprecedented stupidity from a company with a long history of doing this right or purposely done. You decide.

Re:iPhone 4???

[mapinguari]

The beta release is under NDA, of course, so they certainly could sue the individual who violated the agreement.
Unlikely.

Text message charging is much much worse than that

[Rhodri Mawr]

Text messages cost your provider NOTHING. Absolutely NOTHING. The text message data is sent in the free space that's not used in the packet communication with the mobile tower.

Per GB of data, text messaging is the most expensive form of communication anywhere.

I don't think they can afford to charge for this

[Microsift]

A colleague has an iPad, which he carries with him almost everywhere. He tethers it to his non AT&T phone for free.Why would anyone buy an iPad and an iPhone if it requires either two data plans or one expensive one given the cheaper alternatives. ATT will keep me as an iPhone customer once I own an IPad by allowing me to tether the iPad to it,

Finally

[clinko]

I can't wait to pay (Too much Money) a month to complain about it!

Re:Only to be swiftly removed...

[ckaminski]

This is why competition is good. Moto Droid and HTC Incredible are continuing to eat into the mobile marketspace and Verizon is pushing very hard on Android.

Free way to do this, without unlock or jailbreak..

[seandiggity]

This easy method of tethering has been around for at least a year for the iPhone 3.0 firmware, with profiles available for many countries.

Good luck

[matunos]

Tethering's already supported on the 3G (even non-jailbroken). Ben.at proved that. AT&T just hasn't enabled it in their cellular profile. Why should we expect that the iPhone 4 will be any different?

Re:Good luck

[Hamsterdan]

^
What he said

Tethering was *natively* supported by the OS in June '09 (and supported by Rogers). AT&T didn't support it, but other carriers did.

Re:That's nice

[WilyCoder]

Then you should be impressed: right now AT&T isn't supplying tethering ;)

Try Japan

[dimension6]

Softbank over here has absolutely no tethering plans and has no plans to ever enable tethering on the iPhone. I'm surprised that Japanese are so willing to pour money into mobile data devices, as the iPhone is the "second phone" for most people (everyone still keeps their original Japanese flip-phone and data plan because the iPhone lacks nearly all standard Japanese features). Furthermore, Softbank actively disallows all non-Softbank iPhones from being used on the iPhone data plan by keeping track of each unit's IMEI.

On Apple's side, why is it so difficult to switch between countries in the App Store? It can only be done on the PC, and requires me to enter a credit card for each country every single time I switch the iTunes country. This makes keeping Apps updated from the Japan and US stores incredibly difficult.

As soon as the new Android models are released here (or possibly WinMo 7), I'll be switching away from the iPhone mess.

YOU WILL

[RevWaldo]

http://www.youtube.com/v/TZb0avfQme8

Have you ever tucked your baby in from a phone booth?
Bought concert tickets from an ATM?
Sent someone a fax from the beach?
Ever paid a toll without slowing down?

YOU WILL.* And the company that will bring it to you? AT&T.

*Additional rates and fees may apply. Visit att.com for details.


(OK, the ad does get many things right. Look for the iPad at the 00:16 mark. Is there a fax app?)
.

tethering was shown over a year ago

[wardk]

then never released. I'll believe it when I see it. surely it won't be available until ATT figures out how to handle the traffic and charge 3 times what it's worth.

before you do anything else, Apple... remove the ATT monopoly

Re:tethering was shown over a year ago

[Overzeetop]

Move from AT&T to where*? Jobs only does simple. GSM works everywhere in the world. If he goes with Verizon, he's got a complete new radio. Well, that and Verizon won't let him have his way, which is the real reason.

*Yes there are other GSM carriers in the US, but their coverage makes AT&T look seamless.

Re:Free way to do this, without unlock or jailbrea

[codepunk]

Easy if you are jailbroken and or at 3.0 anything over 3.0 does not work.

Re:First one !!

[silverglade00]

You must've posted that over 3G.

Re:tomorrow, tomorrow

[NormalVisual]

Maybe, but in the meantime it's a frigging hard-knock life.

What an age we live in...

[Degro]

Another technological breakthrough the world can give thanks for. Apple has done it again, wow.

Jailbreaking

[GWBasic]

Tethering is the only reason why I'd jailbreak my iPhone. The lack of tethering is the reason why this could be my last iPhone.

android 2.2 tethering?

[farble1670]

so android 2.2 purportedly has tethering (wifi, bluetooth & usb) built into the OS. how will the carriers handle this? i really want to believe i'm getting free tethering in android 2.2 but considering the nexus one (probably the first phone with 2.2) works on AT&T and T-mo, i just can't believe those two companies are just going to magically allow free tethering for N1 users.

?

Re:android 2.2 tethering?

[rat7307]

My 2.1 HTC Desire device has it, so did my 1.6 G1.......... How CAN the carriers tell it is tethering when all it does is act like a NAT device?

Re:android 2.2 tethering?

[farble1670]

if you have tethering now it's because you have a hacked ROM or because you are using a third-part app like PDANet that subverts the debug interface ... the general android populace does not have tethering.

first, it's certainly possible that android 2.2 implements tethering in a way where it can be enabled or disabled at the carrier. it just really seems unlikely to me that anyone who gets an android 2.2 device will get free tethering, when currently carriers are charging double data rates to enable it. common sense says they won't just give that up.

assuming that's not the case, that they can't tell if it's tethering, they can tell the phone model. if say google officially releases tethering-for-all on android 2.2, on the nexus one ... the carrier can simply lock nexus one's off their network. or they can automatically stick them on a higher-cost service plan. carriers aren't obliged to let any phone on their network.

and the point is, google wouldn't do that. they wouldn't put themselves in contention with carriers like that. carriers are key to android's success.

don't get too excited

[roc97007]

"possible" is not the same as "available". AT&T could still decide not to provide the feature, or at a prohibitively unpopular price.

strike fear?

[nurb432]

will strike fear into the hearts of every 3G user in NYC

Why?

Starbucks tip

[Jorgandar]

I've been tethering for 2 years with my iPhone. Just jailbreak teh damn thing. Once you have it, you almost forget that nobody else with an iPhone can do it. (and haha to you)

Here's a little trick: Tether your iPhone at a starbucks cafe. Starbucks allows iPhones to connect to their wifi for free. Therefore, you get free starbucks wifi on yer laptop instead of having to pay for it. Now, why starbucks won't enter the modern area and stop charging for internet access is beyond me.

Re:Starbucks tip

[dlgeek]

Since the standard tethering only allows sharing the cell connection anyway, wouldn't it just be easier to spoof an iphone mac address and get free wifi directly to your laptop?

Re:Starbucks tip

[Jorgandar]

is that easier? sounds very technical to me. tethering was easy to install.