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iOS 4.3 Personal Hotspot Wi-Fi Sharing Limited to Three Devices in Many Countries?

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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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150434-att_hotspot_3_devices.jpg


Engadget posts a purported internal AT&T sales document sharing details of Apple's iOS 4.3 launch scheduled for next Friday, March 11th. According to the document, the personal hotspot functionality included in the update, which the carrier has already announced that it will support[/url] will be limited to three connected Wi-Fi devices.
According to this here slide, which details a bit of insidery AT&T information about the impending release of iOS 4.3, Ma Bell's iPhone 4 will have its Personal Hotspot restricted to use with just three devices. Just about every MiFi / mobile hotspot device we've ever seen -- including Verizon's iPhone 4 -- has supported five WiFi devices, but unless AT&T pulls a 180 here, it'll be limiting its iPhone to just three connections.
Click to expand...
Apple's own iOS 4.3 preview page offers similar language with additional detail revealing the limitations:
You can share your connection with up to five devices at once over Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and USB - with up to three of those connections using Wi-Fi.
Click to expand...
Apple elaborates even further in a footnote on the page, revealing device limitations for each of the connection methods:
Personal Hotspot requires a supporting hotspot tethering plan from your carrier and works with up to three devices over Wi-Fi, three devices over Bluetooth, and one device over USB.
Click to expand...
Interestingly, while identical language is present on Apple's iOS 4.3 preview pages for customers in Canada, Australia, Japan, and many other countries, suggesting that the limitation is Apple's and not AT&T's, pages for customers in European countries simply mention the total limit of five devices.

Article Link: iOS 4.3 Personal Hotspot Wi-Fi Sharing Limited to Three Devices in Many Countries?
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/03/04/ios-4-3-personal-hotspot-wi-fi-sharing-limited-to-three-devices-in-many-countries/
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beaner454

macrumors regular
Apr 22, 2003
145
0
I'm not in favor of the limit, but can anyone imagine sharing a 3g connection with more than 3 people? I guess if all everyone's doing is email it makes sense. But beyond that, man that'd be painful.
 
Rafterman

Rafterman

Contributor
Apr 23, 2010
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beaner454 said:
I'm not in favor of the limit, but can anyone imagine sharing a 3g connection with more than 3 people? I guess if all everyone's doing is email it makes sense. But beyond that, man that'd be painful.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Three devices is two too many for a 3G connection.
 
S

stylewriter

macrumors member
Jun 5, 2004
51
0
Johnson City, TN
Could be differences in allowed WiFi?

I know most of the world allows 13 channels for 802.11b, while the US uses 11 and Japan uses 14. There are similar differences for 802.11g and 802.11n.

This could be that it is a technical limit, there are different WiFi access points for different countries.
 
G

gogoAMG

macrumors newbie
Mar 4, 2011
2
0
NorCal
faster safari performance is always welcome, I always feel like it can be faster, i hope jailbreak comes out for this.
 
Stella

Stella

macrumors G3
Apr 21, 2003
8,838
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Canada
Why the limit? Here in Canada - on Robelus - and probably on others too - there is no restriction on what you can tether as long as you have 1Gig data plan or more..

Imposing a limit on the number of devices seems pretty retarded IMO. Sure the performance will be degraded the more devices being tethered at the same time, of course, but thats to be expected. But as a user, thats my choice.
 
D

dscuber9000

macrumors 6502a
Sep 16, 2007
665
1
Indiana, US
Why would anyone want more than three devices over a 3G connection anyway? It's probably not even a business move for them, more of quality control. :D
 
EdRed

EdRed

macrumors member
Nov 13, 2007
47
36
What about letting an iPod Touch tether (using Bluetooth) to any cel phone that supports it?
 
DJsteveSD

DJsteveSD

macrumors regular
Mar 4, 2011
175
19
Dallas, TX
ugh

havent jailbroken yet but AT&T makes me want to with their $20 tethering plan and having to downgrade to a 2 gb data plan...
 
Warbrain

Warbrain

macrumors 603
Jun 28, 2004
5,702
293
Chicago, IL
Has to be for the sake of battery or hardware limitation.

Regardless, only have connected 2 at the most and don't particularly care to connect more.
 
zorinlynx

zorinlynx

macrumors G3
May 31, 2007
8,168
17,687
Florida, USA
I wish Apple would enable Bluetooth tethering as a *CLIENT* on the iPad.

This way an iPad can tether through an iPhone to the net without consuming a lot of extra power.

Wifi will probably work great, but it's more power hungry since it wasn't intended for this purpose.
 
Consultant

Consultant

macrumors G5
Jun 27, 2007
13,314
34
stylewriter said:
I know most of the world allows 13 channels for 802.11b, while the US uses 11 and Japan uses 14. There are similar differences for 802.11g and 802.11n.

This could be that it is a technical limit, there are different WiFi access points for different countries.
Click to expand...

I doubt it's that. The WiFi sharing would be over 1 channel.


zorinlynx said:
I wish Apple would enable Bluetooth tethering as a *CLIENT* on the iPad.

This way an iPad can tether through an iPhone to the net without consuming a lot of extra power.

Wifi will probably work great, but it's more power hungry since it wasn't intended for this purpose.
Click to expand...

Jailbreak. $2 app Cydia store.
 
Warbrain

Warbrain

macrumors 603
Jun 28, 2004
5,702
293
Chicago, IL
zorinlynx said:
I wish Apple would enable Bluetooth tethering as a *CLIENT* on the iPad.

This way an iPad can tether through an iPhone to the net without consuming a lot of extra power.

Wifi will probably work great, but it's more power hungry since it wasn't intended for this purpose.
Click to expand...

Um, you can in 4.3.
 
SkippyThorson

SkippyThorson

macrumors 68000
Jul 22, 2007
1,669
937
Utica, NY
This document actually makes it look like both the iPhone and iPad are getting all of these features.

Obviously, the iPad isn't getting the Personal Hotspot feature, but I have to ask now... Would the iPhone be getting the switch toggle option and PhotoBooth?

Now that would be a nifty addition - even though I doubt it. Did anyone else read that like I did?
 
petvas

petvas

macrumors 603
Jul 20, 2006
5,479
1,807
Munich, Germany
SkippyThorson said:
This document actually makes it look like both the iPhone and iPad are getting all of these features.

Obviously, the iPad isn't getting the Personal Hotspot feature, but I have to ask now... Would the iPhone be getting the switch toggle option and PhotoBooth?

Now that would be a nifty addition - even though I doubt it. Did anyone else read that like I did?
Click to expand...
The iPhone doesn't get Photobooth in iOS 4.3. Maybe in the future that will change.
 
xraydoc

xraydoc

Contributor
Oct 9, 2005
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Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_6 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8E200 Safari/6533.18.5)

Doesn't the Verizon iPhone's 4.2.6 support 5 devices on wifi?
 
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