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You get unlimited data anyway with the iPhone. I'm sure there'll be some jailbroken apps that all you to tether anyway...
 
I remember when tethering was free on o2 contracts… Ah, the good ol' days. :rolleyes:


Besides, their prices aren't all bad. If you go over the cap on the tethering bolt ons, it's only 19.6p per extra MB you use. So that's just £201 per extra GB! Bargain!
 
The first thing is that 99.999% of the contracts said that you are getting "mobile web" or "mobile internet" --- even if your phone has a full browser. "Mobile Internet" is defined as WAP and tethering ain't WAP.

Since when have O2 only offered 'mobile web' on iphones? The point of iphones is to be able to browse the full internet. I've never seen anyone use a WAP site on an iphone!!
 
At least there's a choice in how much you pay for tethering. AT&T will likely offer an unlimited plan (which really means 6 GB) for an extra $30-$40/month. :(

BTW, is anyone really surprised that they're charging for tethering? The iPhone has made mobile browsing easy. It's safe to say that it'll make tethering a common word soon enough.
If you are surprised, you're more naive than I thought.
 
The point that everyone seems to be missing is that it's priced that high because they actually don't want you (the majority) to use it.

Although you can browse the web, download iTunes content, watch YouTube videos, retrieve mail etc on your iPhone, you can only do one of those things at once (ok there are some exceptions).

Point is, from your laptop you can do all of these things at the same time and for prolonged periods, which would clog up there bandwidth, which would slow down the service for everyone else.
 
Hey -- at least you'll get the option of tethering.

Does anyone really plan on using this every month? I only really plan on adding it on during months that WiFi isn't available while away.

Example: I went to Bush Kill, Poconos, P.A. We stayed in a timeshare for a week. To get the WiFi turned on, it cost $10/day for a week. Tethering would have been nice.
 
Please people. You get FREE DATA on ALL plans, and your moaning about them charging a little extra for tethering?

No, this is definitely not shocking.

What other countries can say this about the iPhone? You don't realise it yet, but O2 is the single best carrier for an iPhone plan.

Tethering is not widely used, therefore it's not a necessity, it's a luxury.
If you want it, expect to pay through your nose for it. End of.

R-Fly

I think that's an absolutely ridiculous thing to say.

O2 as a carrier have been okay for me but surely there could be some sort of included allowance within your plan, rather than adding up to 50% extra on your monthly bill even if it's just for half an hour's surfing.

I would have thought that maybe 1gb could have been included per month or just do smaller bolt-ons as most people say.

Anyway, from your signature I take it you're fan boy central and will be picking your 32GB 3GS up on the day of release, wonderful.
 
Since when have O2 only offered 'mobile web' on iphones? The point of iphones is to be able to browse the full internet. I've never seen anyone use a WAP site on an iphone!!

No, the point is that the contract itself has NOTHING to do with technical stuff. When you buy any other mobile phone (anything but the iphone or a blackberry) in the world, your carrier will give you the same contract --- they don't give you one contract if your mobile phone has only a WAP browser, and a second contract if your mobile phone has a full browser.

Even in the original 2G iphone contract, O2 has always restricted the usage to be inside the iphone only.

"UNLIMITED DATA / WIFI EXCESSIVE USAGE POLICY
Your O2 tariff for iPhone allows you unlimited use of Telefónica O2 UK Limited's Edge / GPRS networks and The Cloud's UK Wireless LAN network and the BT Openzone Wireless LAN network, for personal internet use, email and Visual Voicemail (VVM) on your iPhone only."
 
O2 are already bundling in mobile internet (usually £7.50 p/m), Wi-Fi from The Cloud/BT Openzone (also usually £7.50 p/m) and their ITS service (usually £2.99 a month)

Surely it's getting to a point now where it would be unprofitable for O2 to bundle in any more, hence why they don't
 
Meanwhile on other threads...

...It has been observed that Apple has made it trivially easy to enable tethering. (Without paying an additional penny)

You can load a new ipcc using the current version of iTunes - or do the same via an iPhone enabled website.

This somewhat by-passes the carrier's ability to charge for the feature.

Perhaps this was a technical oversight. Or perhaps Apple thought people should be able to do this without addition charges. It reminds me of the ringtone fiasco.

I wonder how the carriers will respond?

C.
 
There's no great surprise about the price - it's exactly the same rate that they currently charge for Mobile Broadband.

However, a PAYG option would be useful for those of us who would consider using it occasionally. O2 do offer PAYG Mobile Broadband, so maybe this will be introduced at a later date for the iPhone as well.
 
I asked this the other day actually and there are "no plans" at the moment for pay-as-you-go tethering which is annoying as their £2/day, £7.50/week rate for mobile boradband would be something I would use very occasional.

Might just get a dongle actually, only £30.
 
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