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No Tethering Option for iPhone 3G
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Oh wow, look who brought MMS into a discussion about tethering. Big surprise.
Hmm, I never claimed you were the one mentioning MMS first.
Secondly, it was a small part of a comment to a comment of yours, where you stated that there would always be workarounds for the shortcomings on the iPhone.
Anyway, I made it clear you were more than willing to discuss it, even though you had no clue it was different from email - email being a favourite topic of yours in this thread.
Again: I never claimed you brought mms into this discussion. I stated you were more than willing to discuss it, and even more willing to discuss email. And this in a thread about tethering. By extention you ought to take your own medicine and go somewhere else to make a thread about it.
Do yourself a favour: Stop with the strawmen - it's fast becoming embarrassing to watch.
Tell you what. I'm going to let you have the last word in this "discussion" because, quite frankly, you're boring me (not to mention anyone else who happened to stumble upon this unfortunate thread) ... Knock yourself out, champ!
Tell you what. I'm going to let you have the last word in this "discussion" because, quite frankly, you're boring me (not to mention anyone else who happened to stumble upon this unfortunate thread) ... Knock yourself out, champ!
I'm glad you take my advice and swallow your own medicine, Sonny.
I mean, you go off, defending all the shortcomings of the phone, goes on to claim you have been using "the latest and greatest handsets for six years", all the while claiming that other phones are not capable of email, not understanding the difference between MMS and email, and generally just being a fanboy uttering all sorts of nonsense about mail, and now you pretend you haven't done so, nor have you been talking utter "off-topic" crap in this thread.
It's no wonder you're now withdrawing from the discussion, seeing how you have no leg to stand on. It doesn't matter if you pretend to be a big boy everyone can see you're the driveler in this context. Well, unless you go back and delete all your nonsense and unfounded fanboyish claims.
called ATT
Just got off the phone with a AT&T customer service rep. Asked her 2 questions 1 being.. When I am outside of 3G coverage will my phone automatically pick up on edge without any additional fee, the answer was yes. The second question was Will there be a phone as modem plan for the iphone so I can tether the phone to my laptop the answer, to my surprise after rummaging through similar forums to this for weeks, was yes. Asked her a second time and yes again. When I asked her the price of the plan in order to do this she said AT&T was not allowed to release this pricing yet.
Just got off the phone with a AT&T customer service rep. Asked her 2 questions 1 being.. When I am outside of 3G coverage will my phone automatically pick up on edge without any additional fee, the answer was yes. The second question was Will there be a phone as modem plan for the iphone so I can tether the phone to my laptop the answer, to my surprise after rummaging through similar forums to this for weeks, was yes. Asked her a second time and yes again. When I asked her the price of the plan in order to do this she said AT&T was not allowed to release this pricing yet.
Just got off the phone with a AT&T customer service rep. Asked her 2 questions 1 being.. When I am outside of 3G coverage will my phone automatically pick up on edge without any additional fee, the answer was yes. The second question was Will there be a phone as modem plan for the iphone so I can tether the phone to my laptop the answer, to my surprise after rummaging through similar forums to this for weeks, was yes. Asked her a second time and yes again. When I asked her the price of the plan in order to do this she said AT&T was not allowed to release this pricing yet.
INTERESTING! I got a flat "no" when I did the online chat with a sales rep, but then she didn't seem to bright to begin with....
I'd say, wait and see what they end up doing, and be prepared for a LOT of confusion on this subject on release day... And then, plan on having a lot of fighting with customer service/accounting when you get your bill... From what I've seen of AT&T the left hand RARELY has a clue what the right hand is doing and what you'll be told by one rep won't be true when you speak to another...
I live in Atlanta, home of Bellsouth/Cingular prior to te AT&T buyout, and a know many people who were Bellsouth/Cing before and after the buyout... They consistently give the same story - The Bellsouth/Cing people "get it" the AT&T folk "are idiots, are beurocrats and it takes 10 of them and 3 hour long conference calls to get something done that I used to just pick up the phone and talk to 1 person who would handle it all"
Just got off the phone with a AT&T customer service rep. Asked her 2 questions 1 being.. “When I am outside of 3G coverage will my phone automatically pick up on edge without any additional fee”, the answer was yes. The second question was “Will there be a phone as modem plan for the iphone so I can tether the phone to my laptop” the answer, to my surprise after rummaging through similar forums to this for weeks, was yes. Asked her a second time and yes again. When I asked her the price of the plan in order to do this she said AT&T was not allowed to release this pricing yet.
I doubt she knew what she was talking about. Normally, when I talk to customer service on the phone, I take what they say with a grain of salt. Based on experience, I have found that they know less about the product than the customer does. They have a book/protocol that they read, but when you start asking them questions beyond their protocol, their answers come with hesitation/uncertainty in their voices. How many times have they had to put you on hold while they go and ask their supervisor a question? Sometimes the supervisor doesn't even know.
I have read a lot of news articles, the Apple website, the AT&T website, and other supplemental material, and I recall reading in several places that tethering will not be a feature built into the iPhone.
The problem with this is that Apple wants to win over Blackberry users, but one feature that a lot of businesses love about the Blackberry is that users can tether their laptops and use the phone as a modem. Steve Jobs, you should have thought about this one. Or maybe, it was AT&T's decision. But AT&T could just charge a premium for it, like they do with Blackberries. Hmmmm. I wonder if there will be a software update that will allow tethering, or I wonder if some hacker will release a fix that 99% of all iPhone users download. This should be interesting.
Tethering is getting to be less of an issue in the US, but is very important for those of us living/working overseas.
In Belgium for example, Intercontinental Hotels (Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza) routinely charge $27/DAY for wifi access in the hotels! With absurdly low download limits, as well.
Being able to tether allows road warriors to bypass these ripoff hotel systems.
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Here in the U.S., about half of hotels have free WiFi and about half charge. I'm not sure which direction we are headed though. A lot of hotels advertise "free WiFi" to attract customers, like most non-hotel businesses do. A lot of restaurants advertise "free WiFi" to attract customers, but some lame restaurants have started charging for an "access code." Stupid! I don't go to those businesses. I only go to businesses that offer the free WiFi. What's absolutely absurd is that I can drive through a residential neighborhood in my car and find hundreds of WiFi connections (free), but if I drive around the corner, some restaurant wants to charge me. At my own house, I have two WiFi systems - one that is secure for my computers, and one that is unsecure so that my neighbors and other people can use it. I have not had any problems with bandwidth yet. If it slows down, then I will limit access, but so far I have not had any problems.
Why not just park in the residential neighborhood then?
That doesn't mean there aren't other valid concerns.