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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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: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.

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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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.

Didn't they already announce this?

[Anonymous Coward]

This doesn't sound new.

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: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.