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iOS 4.3 to Bring Mobile Hotspots to GSM iPhones, Pending Carrier Support?
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T-mobile is one of 6 providers for the iphone in the UK. Propbably one of the smallest. So maybe not tar all with the same brush?
Just to claify i am in the UK on tesco mobile. I pay £20 per month (inc. taxes) for 500 cross network minutes, Unlimited texts and 1GB of data and use of 2 million wifi hotspots. Oh and thats only a 12 month contract. Bargain.
So T-Mobile are talking crap to say that 500mb in industry standard for the UK.
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Forget the extra $20 AT&T wants for tether, in addition to losing 60% of my "unlimited" data plan (you can only add tethering to the new $25 2gb plan. I'm more pissed that I have to pay $20 for unlimited text messages? The same messages I paid $5-10 for unlimited for years before the iPhone. All a text is a few kb of data, I have GB's of data why the **** am I paying more for text?
Because AT&t knows people text more then talk and want to make as much money as possiable. Even with extensive tethering I don't go much past 2gb at the most, why does it matter if I view it on my iPhone or my MacBook?
Because AT&t knows people text more then talk and want to make as much money as possiable. Even with extensive tethering I don't go much past 2gb at the most, why does it matter if I view it on my iPhone or my MacBook?
I noticed that the Verizon iPhone shows "3G" to indicate EvDO access, instead of "Ev" like other phones do. I wonder if it at least shows "1x" for 1xRTT instead of an E? Because there's no such thing as "EDGE" on a CDMA network.
Also, I suspect the reason for all the restrictions on the iPhone is AT&T. I can't see why Apple wouldn't want to provide every feature they can. The fact that they're not providing mobile hotspot as soon as it comes to Verizon tells us that all the iPhone limitations were AT&T's fault.
Long live Verizon.
Also, I suspect the reason for all the restrictions on the iPhone is AT&T. I can't see why Apple wouldn't want to provide every feature they can. The fact that they're not providing mobile hotspot as soon as it comes to Verizon tells us that all the iPhone limitations were AT&T's fault.
Long live Verizon.
I don't see why carrier support would be needed. It's basically tethering, which is already possible on AT&T. It's the limitations of the iPhone itself that do not allow tethering over the WiFi or Bluetooth.
Am I wrong?
Am I wrong?
I would love to have this.. it would make my decision to buy a wifi only iPad valid.. I would just use my phone as a wireless connection when ever i need my ipad on the go hopefully they just offer it free.. Probably not but if verizon has it for free they better...
it'll be interesting to see what Verizon's decision will do to 3G iPad sales. Most iPad users are likely iPhone users as well. If it pushes the AT&T to adopt free hotspots as well, it could canabalize that market.
I'm sure AT&T (underestandably) would prefer to charge the same price to create mobile hotspots so they are getting paid either way.
Of course that assumes Verizon would make hotspots free....if they charge for it, I could AT&T just price matching.
I love when people just say you can always jail break... it is not possible for those of us who have upgraded to the new iOS. If Verizon offers the Wifi hot spot for free I will switch. I am rather happy with AT&T but the "Deal Breaker" is if I dont get Wifi for free I am still under the Unlimited Data plan and always go way over 2GB a month!
Carrier "support" really means approval. AT&T charges extra for tethering, so the network can instruct the phone whether it's allowed to offer it or not.
My hope is that AT&T and Apple both come to the conclusion that tethering is tethering and simply add tethering over wifi (that is, personal hotspot) functionality for no more than the existing $20 extra cost.
Yeah!
Sounds good, I hope they're not gonna make us pay even more for that data we're already paying.
Sounds good, I hope they're not gonna make us pay even more for that data we're already paying.
Damn near every other company I know of has solved this issue. All O2 has to say out loud is that tethering is not supported on the cheaper plans. Not that it's not allowed.
I have an AT&T go phone SIM in my burglar/fire alarm. That's not supported either. But it works. So AT&T doesn't care.
They may not do so right away, but if this feature isn't available within a month or two after the Verizon iPhone launches I'll be shocked.
First and foremost, AT&T is going to try and do all it can to prevent iPhone users from jumping to Verizon which means they will do everything they can to be as price and feature competitive with Verizon as possible.
Second, they already allow tethering and have a lot of users who are already using this feature. It's not hard on either a Mac or Windows PC to share your internet connection with other devices. There are no doubt already users out there who are tethering and then using their laptops or desktops to share the connection with other devices.
Third, there's a $20 dollar app you can buy called MyWi for jailbroken iPhones that allows you to do this already and has for some time without giving an additional cent to AT&T over and above a standard data plan without having to pay extra for the tethering option if you're smart about how you use it. If they offer this service there is a certain percentage of those users who will go legit. I had a jailbroken iPhone and used MyWi until AT&T offered the tethering option. I didn't like the thought of having a jailbroken phone and having to hold off no new updates, etc, but I needed that feature. When they made it available I restored the phone to it's normal state and switched the the 2 GB plan that offered tethering and went legit. I'm sure there are a certain percentage of users out there who have jailbroken phones that use the app or an app like it who would go legit if AT&T gave them the option.
That sort of leads into my last point which is that AT&T has moved away from the unlimited plan model and moved into a usage based pricing model. Why not allow users to use their iPhone as a mobile hotspot? To do so they'll have to move away from an unlimited plan if they were grandfathered into one and into a tiered usage based pricing plan so they'll be paying for the data they use. Why would AT&T care which device is consuming the data? They shouldn't. All they care about is selling your the service so they can put more money into their pockets. IMO offering the feature is a great way to get more users who were grandfathered into the unlimited iPhone data plan to move away from it. AT&T will get paid for how much data you're using no matter which device it may be.
I realize their goal was probably initially to get you to pay for your iPhone's data connection and then pay seperatly for either a 3G card for you laptop or a mobile hotspot device to power your laptop and other devices but that's just one giant PTA for consumers in terms of the number of devices they'd have to carry around for mobile Internet access so most users wouldn't go down that road even if it was the only road available to them and since their competition is already going down the phone as a mobile hotspot device route AT&T has no choice but to follow.
The bottom line is that this is a feature they'll be offering sooner rather than later and if not then there are likely to be more users jumping to Verizon than would have otherwise been the case.
Right now I'm not planning to move to Verizon. I've been happy with AT&T's service up to this point but being able to use the iPhone as a mobile hotspot without having to jailbreak the device is the kind of feature that would make me jump to Verizon when my contract is up in 6 months. AT&T better either already be offering that feature by then or have a firm date announced that isn't too far in the distant feature for when it will be available or I'll move over to Verizon and won't think twice about it.
I've used them in the past and, for me, their service worked as well as AT&T's has. I happened to already be an AT&T customer when the iPhone came out but it's not like I would hesitate to make a switch. I just don't see the point since AT&T's service has been as good as I think you can expect a cell phone service to be provided AT&T is competitive with it's pricing and features.
First and foremost, AT&T is going to try and do all it can to prevent iPhone users from jumping to Verizon which means they will do everything they can to be as price and feature competitive with Verizon as possible.
Second, they already allow tethering and have a lot of users who are already using this feature. It's not hard on either a Mac or Windows PC to share your internet connection with other devices. There are no doubt already users out there who are tethering and then using their laptops or desktops to share the connection with other devices.
Third, there's a $20 dollar app you can buy called MyWi for jailbroken iPhones that allows you to do this already and has for some time without giving an additional cent to AT&T over and above a standard data plan without having to pay extra for the tethering option if you're smart about how you use it. If they offer this service there is a certain percentage of those users who will go legit. I had a jailbroken iPhone and used MyWi until AT&T offered the tethering option. I didn't like the thought of having a jailbroken phone and having to hold off no new updates, etc, but I needed that feature. When they made it available I restored the phone to it's normal state and switched the the 2 GB plan that offered tethering and went legit. I'm sure there are a certain percentage of users out there who have jailbroken phones that use the app or an app like it who would go legit if AT&T gave them the option.
That sort of leads into my last point which is that AT&T has moved away from the unlimited plan model and moved into a usage based pricing model. Why not allow users to use their iPhone as a mobile hotspot? To do so they'll have to move away from an unlimited plan if they were grandfathered into one and into a tiered usage based pricing plan so they'll be paying for the data they use. Why would AT&T care which device is consuming the data? They shouldn't. All they care about is selling your the service so they can put more money into their pockets. IMO offering the feature is a great way to get more users who were grandfathered into the unlimited iPhone data plan to move away from it. AT&T will get paid for how much data you're using no matter which device it may be.
I realize their goal was probably initially to get you to pay for your iPhone's data connection and then pay seperatly for either a 3G card for you laptop or a mobile hotspot device to power your laptop and other devices but that's just one giant PTA for consumers in terms of the number of devices they'd have to carry around for mobile Internet access so most users wouldn't go down that road even if it was the only road available to them and since their competition is already going down the phone as a mobile hotspot device route AT&T has no choice but to follow.
The bottom line is that this is a feature they'll be offering sooner rather than later and if not then there are likely to be more users jumping to Verizon than would have otherwise been the case.
Right now I'm not planning to move to Verizon. I've been happy with AT&T's service up to this point but being able to use the iPhone as a mobile hotspot without having to jailbreak the device is the kind of feature that would make me jump to Verizon when my contract is up in 6 months. AT&T better either already be offering that feature by then or have a firm date announced that isn't too far in the distant feature for when it will be available or I'll move over to Verizon and won't think twice about it.
I've used them in the past and, for me, their service worked as well as AT&T's has. I happened to already be an AT&T customer when the iPhone came out but it's not like I would hesitate to make a switch. I just don't see the point since AT&T's service has been as good as I think you can expect a cell phone service to be provided AT&T is competitive with it's pricing and features.
Why would they do that? By saying it's not allowed a certain percentage of people will pay for it who otherwise would not. By saying it's now allowed but allowing it anyway who keep the users who were never going to pay for it in the first place happy because they aren't paying for it and you get the people who are willing to pay extra for it paying extra. Everybody wins ....
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148a Safari/6533.18.5)
Gotta comment the pending carrier support.. No, there is no need for carrier support. On the contrary, the carrier should have no right to deny users the feature. No more than they have the right to meddle with any other features of the device. You should really demand the separation of the devices and carrier plans. You are being royally screwed by the lock-in system.
Gotta comment the pending carrier support.. No, there is no need for carrier support. On the contrary, the carrier should have no right to deny users the feature. No more than they have the right to meddle with any other features of the device. You should really demand the separation of the devices and carrier plans. You are being royally screwed by the lock-in system.
T-Mobile the smallest? Are you even in the uk? If so you must be living under a rock?
T-Mobile are the largest UK network. They merged with Orange and created "http://everythingeverywhere.com/" and are a force to be reckoned with.
Tesco on the other hand are a virtual network, run on the O2 back bone. They are tiny and run on a very small margin, they have the network primarily for club card tie-ins etc.
O2/Tesco are pathetic in comparison to Orange/Voda/Tmob.
I'm an O2 customer (iphone) and they are useless in almost every respect in my area.
I'm also a 3 customer (iPad) and an Everything Everywhere customer (business) and they are fantasic in my areas.
I'd rather have 500mb of data, unlimited calls and text than a gig of data on a network that is so patchy and slow that i cant use it
Not sure if this has been covered... but I suppose this means
1. I could turn my GSM iPad into a WiFi hotspot.
2. I should worry more about security issues when connecting to random WiFi hotspots... they could easily snoop my personal data (passwords, etc).
1. I could turn my GSM iPad into a WiFi hotspot.
2. I should worry more about security issues when connecting to random WiFi hotspots... they could easily snoop my personal data (passwords, etc).
