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iPhone Tethering and MMS Hacks Surface

Legal?

Does AT&T have legal rights to stop this? Well sure. It seems that most of you defending AT&T and demonizing those wanting to enable tethering and MMS are missing the point tho. iPhone users are already paying a premium price for the phone itself (and gladly because of its innovation as a smartphone) and also paying a premium price for the service plan that has been raised for unknown reasons as no other smartphone plans cost as much as the iPhones. Yet, with all that we still dont get to use our phones like the other smartphones that AT&T sells. Why? There has been no response to this and it seems to me that the customers that have been forced to live by AT&Ts policies are fed up. In the eyes of the law, these hacks are considered at the least violating the AT&T agreement. So I say this. Those of you complaining about this being so wrong need to put down your Starbucks coffee (If it hadnt been for the illegal tea party you would be drinking tea right now) or put down that beer (if it wasnt for the illegal trade of alcohol, prohibition would still be in place). My point is, sometimes to create changes people need to band together and do things that, at the time, would be considered illegal. Just because something is "legal" doesnt necessarily make it "right".

I'm off my soapbox, you guys should probably get off yours now too.
 
Dan1990 said:
Even if the carriers are able to notice tethering over regular iPhone internet usage, I will just turn around and say I'm using NetShare, which I downloaded legitimately.

Therefore, I think we will have to see Stevey boy push the big red 'App Kill' button before the carriers can become hostile against people using unauthorised tethering.

I also reckon it will be a similar amount of people who use the tethering hack method as those who have been using NetShare or similar methods, meaning it's not enough of a problem for the carriers to kick up a media sandstorm over.

I think we're safe for now.
Click to expand...

True, NetShare is a good scapegoat here...
 
Snide said:
I respectfully call BS.

My mom uses PdaNet through the iPhone as her sole internet connection at home.
I had her reset her Usage stats a couple months ago, and after one month, she had
used a whopping 900 MB. As we all know, there's an unofficial 5 GB "soft cap",
so she's using less than 1/5th of that. Her use includes normal browsing with
the occasional video here and there. Since AT&T calls the $30 data plan "unlimited",
this hardly seems excessive by any measure...
Click to expand...

optophobia said:
That is a specific instance. It is not true in all cases. Your mom uses less on tethering than I do on my phone ( I use about 3GB/month)
If I were to use my iPhone for all my internet use then I would expect it to use over 20GB / month
Click to expand...

I did a test for two weeks a few months ago... I disabled wifi on my phone and streamed Pandora on my phone every minute I was at work for 2 weeks. I had used 50mb of data before I started this, and had used 950mb afterwards. I still used my phone regularly during this period too, accessing website, IMing, etc.

zombitronic said:
Yes, please. My understanding is that tethering just allows you to access your 3G connection via a computer. I'm not sure why you think tethering would use any more data than what's available from your iPhone, unless you mean that a user on a computer would likely use the connection more than a user on an iPhone. Still, you're limited by the speed of the 3G connectivity. It is an unlimited data plan and I don't see the difference between constantly downloading video on the 3G network via the iTunes app on an iPhone or downloading video via iTunes on a computer.
Click to expand...

That's why I played with this. Users who tether are given more of an ability to use more data, but most probably won't.
 
Enuratique said:
Don't get me wrong, I completely agree - your logic is sound... However, AT&T has sold a crapload of unlimited plans assuming the average user would never hit those caps... I certainly don't... So for now, the network can handle it... But if alot of people just casually started tethering then the network as a whole would suffer for it... The extra cost on top is more to deter people from wanting to tether... I don't think 3G was really designed for that kind of use.
Click to expand...


That's why they have the 5GB soft-cap and "unlimited" is a misnomer... they even raised my monthly data rate to $30/month when I bought a 3G phone, increasing my speed, but not my soft-cap.

If the soft cap is at 5GB, i.e. the # that doesn't send up any red flags, why would they care whether I use my phone or my laptop to view <=5GB of data / month?

The HSDPA technology is fully capable of handling IP traffic at some data rate for some number of simultaneous connections, that's what it is designed and deployed to do... I assume that the 5GB soft-cap isn't just some random number pulled out of the air, but was put in place so they had something to use for bandwidth and capacity modeling, while reigning in users that exceeded it (at least that is what that number should mean, if their network can't support that model, then that's their own fault for making up a BS # in the first place).

Broadband ISP's tried to do something similar by limiting or charging for the # of computers that you had hooked up to the connection, but that proved to be completely unmanageable and they reverted to speed tiers and usage caps. Comcast doesn't give one whit how many and what kind of computers I have hooked up, but what they care about is that 250GB/month usage cap (same w/ AT&T and their 20-150GB caps depending upon which speed tier you sign up for).

I understand why ATT would "like" to charge more for that <=5GB/month of data when consumed on a laptop rather than on the phone, but it doesn't make any sense from a consumer's point of view since AT&T is providing no additional "value" by charging more for it. If it is $30 for the iPhone and $60 for a laptop, then using their pricing logic, they should charge $45/month for access when using a netbook.

In my opinion, what they need to do is keep "tethering" as a feature to up-sell you to a more expensive phone that supports tethering and offer higher tiers of service (e.g. 5GB for $30/month, 15GB for $50/month, 30GB for $60/month or some such sliding scale). That way their data business model starts to look a lot more like their voice business model where they can more easily justify charging you for overages and up-sell you into the next tier when you call to complain.
 
Couldn't a 2g phone do this and get mms if a 3g specific firmware was able to be installed on a 2g phone. 2g phones are simply missing the camera icon next to the texting field. Right, or am I missing something bigger here?
 
Easy Tethering Option for iPhone 3G

A buddy of mine just sent this to me. It's been the easiest that I've seen to set up tethering on new 3.0 Firmware for the 3G. You can actually visit this site on THE SAFARI BROWSER ON YOUR IPHONE and activate it immediately.

http://help.benm.at/help.php
 
I canada it looks like we are going to get free tethering, as long as your data plan is over 1Gb per month. (https://www.fido.ca/web/content/faq/iphone_qa09#q16)

but this may be incorrect because closer to the top of the page it says the old 8Gb iPhone 3G will be $199 which is the same price as the 16Gb iPhone 3GS (Obviously a typo unless they plan on selling zero 8Gb iPhone 3G's and tones of 16Gb iPhone 3GS's)
 
Apple is being ridiculous here!

Instead of implementing a carrier whitelist they should have implemented a blacklist instead! :mad:

I bought an iPhone 3G without contract from O2 and with no SIM Lock! Yet I have to hack it using one of the mentioned methods to enable tethering on O2! This is NOT OK! :mad:

I pay my 8€/Month for my data tariff and it's not bound to any specific device type or fair use iPod stuff! So let me use it, damn it! :mad:
 
dkh587 said:
I have a kind of silly question.. I know when I set my Bold up to tether, I had to program it to use wap@cingular or whatever. Will the carrier file we download, already be programmed to use the right settings? I know that if you use isp@cingular or whatever it is, that's when you get charged..
Click to expand...

Any answers?:(
 
knewsom said:
Sure it is - I'm paying for up to 5 GB of it a month, how I use that should be entirely up to me.
Click to expand...
When AT&T offered you your 5 GB contract, it did this knowing that one average people would use maybe 200 MB. If they have reason to believe that the average will be much higher, they will start offering much different contracts. Such as lowering the limit to maybe 1 GB and offering higher-cost plans with higher limits.
 
Been following the steps for this to get it working for pay and go on o2. Can any other pay and go customers confirm its worked for them? The tethering option just disappears or still displays the prompt to go to the o2 website
 
topmounter said:
Comcast doesn't give one whit how many and what kind of computers I have hooked up, but what they care about is that 250GB/month usage cap (same w/ AT&T and their 20-150GB caps depending upon which speed tier you sign up for).

I understand why ATT would "like" to charge more for that <=5GB/month of data when consumed on a laptop rather than on the phone, but it doesn't make any sense from a consumer's point of view since AT&T is providing no additional "value" by charging more for it.
Click to expand...
Surfing with a laptop is providing additional value compared to surfing on an iPhone.
 
seanooi said:
using this tethering hack breaks the iphone's voicemail function. You won't get notified if you have a voicemail and for those who has visual voicemail, it wouldn't work too. I've tried to find of ways to get the both of them to work but to no avail.

Maybe it's just me or maybe someone could point out on how to fix this.
Click to expand...

Just change the Visual Voicemail apn to acds.voicemail in settings>general>network>cellular data network and reboot the phone
 
MrMartyn said:
Been following the steps for this to get it working for pay and go on o2. Can any other pay and go customers confirm its worked for them? The tethering option just disappears or still displays the prompt to go to the o2 website
Click to expand...

I use "O2 de". Be more specific! It works fine for me both using APN: "internet" and "surfo2". But sometimes I have to reinstall the IPCC because the tethering disappears from the menu.
 
yaroldb said:
I did it on my 2g Iphone. No dice. I did it with my wifes 3g and it worked great. Even the speeds were not so bad. I can't wait to try it tomorrow with my new 3gs:D
Click to expand...

I have done these steps on my 8GB 3G iPhone and EACH TIME it does not work - no tethering option under networking...

Any ideas? I am a technical person as this is super easy to install and run but it is NOT WORKING (for me, that is). PDAnet here I come - again, Friday.

D
 
manu chao said:
When AT&T offered you your 5 GB contract, it did this knowing that one average people would use maybe 200 MB. If they have reason to believe that the average will be much higher, they will start offering much different contracts. Such as lowering the limit to maybe 1 GB and offering higher-cost plans with higher limits.
Click to expand...

And I fully respect their right to do so. I use well under a gig of data a month on my current plan, and even with tethering, I'll use well under a gig a month, and probably closer to the customer average - 3G is painfully slow compared to wifi, which is why I usually use wifi.
 
This idea of charging extra for tethering is a JOKE! Before I got the iPhone I was using a Windows Mobile HTC phone that had an app builtin to Windows Mobile called Internet Sharing. I used this to tether and there was never any problem. It always worked and I was never charged anything extra. Now they add the tethering to the iPhone and we're suppose to pay extra for it when other phones can do it for no extra charge... F**K off AT&T!
 
PabloGS said:
I use "O2 de". Be more specific! It works fine for me both using APN: "internet" and "surfo2". But sometimes I have to reinstall the IPCC because the tethering disappears from the menu.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I meant o2 UK. I've tried both profiles (http://help.benm.at/uk.php) and change the APN to payandgo.o2.co.uk as directed but with no luck! So wondered if any other o2 UK pay and go customers have done it and what their exact steps were...
 
Dragonlance1561 said:
I canada it looks like we are going to get free tethering, as long as your data plan is over 1Gb per month. (https://www.fido.ca/web/content/faq/iphone_qa09#q16)

but this may be incorrect because closer to the top of the page it says the old 8Gb iPhone 3G will be $199 which is the same price as the 16Gb iPhone 3GS (Obviously a typo unless they plan on selling zero 8Gb iPhone 3G's and tones of 16Gb iPhone 3GS's)
Click to expand...

Good find!
I actually tethered on Fido yesterday. Not sure why the page says it won't be set up until Friday.
 
seanooi said:
using this tethering hack breaks the iphone's voicemail function. You won't get notified if you have a voicemail and for those who has visual voicemail, it wouldn't work too. I've tried to find of ways to get the both of them to work but to no avail.

Maybe it's just me or maybe someone could point out on how to fix this.
Click to expand...

That's true.... For the heck of it I went into my voicemail this morning and I had 12 unheard messages!!! And the phone icon didn't report this... Hope to find a fix soon!!
 
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