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SHould not cost extra

It should not cost extra to use the iPhone as a modem. The computer does not have to use more bandwidth than the phone. One should be able to stay in the reasonable range of use.

If you try to download several DVD worth of data a day AT&T may have a problem with that. But to browse the net, get emails, do VPN tothe office to take care of a problem, should not be a big deal.

Since I have the iPhone I do not use my laptop as much as I used to. So it is a wash anyway.

Besides, it will be hard to explain to customers why it needs to cost more to AT&T if you surf via a phone or a MAc. In the old times when phones did not support a full feature browser, it was easier for cariers to make a case, now my safari on the iPhone uses the same bandwith as my Safari on my Mac.

If they charge extra people will be rip off as most will not use the tethering capability all the time. 30 extra to connect my computer to the net 4 hours a month is not an option for me. I have 3 iPhones 3G in my plan and they get plenty from me as it is.
 
I just got the carrier settings edited to enable tethering, but AT&T appears to not allow it. Bummer.

EDIT: Instructions here

Hmm.. pity O2 UK don't provide a carrier bundle (O2 ireland do but I'm not sure enough what I'd have to change to use that), otherwise I'd have a go at enabling it.

In fact I now have 110 carrier bundles on my machine.. probably the settings for every carrier that the iphone supports *except* O2!
 
It should not cost extra to use the iPhone as a modem. The computer does not have to use more bandwidth than the phone. One should be able to stay in the reasonable range of use.

If you try to download several DVD worth of data a day AT&T may have a problem with that. But to browse the net, get emails, do VPN tothe office to take care of a problem, should not be a big deal.

Since I have the iPhone I do not use my laptop as much as I used to. So it is a wash anyway.

Besides, it will be hard to explain to customers why it needs to cost more to AT&T if you surf via a phone or a MAc. In the old times when phones did not support a full feature browser, it was easier for cariers to make a case, now my safari on the iPhone uses the same bandwith as my Safari on my Mac.

If they charge extra people will be rip off as most will not use the tethering capability all the time. 30 extra to connect my computer to the net 4 hours a month is not an option for me. I have 3 iPhones 3G in my plan and they get plenty from me as it is.

You just made the perfect post to show why AT&T MUST CHARGE for tethering. The reason they don't worry about iPhone web data is because outside of youtube you won't be streaming much video. No flash so even less video to stream. Third AT&T doesn't have the idiot's running torrents over their network as you can't download to an iPhone.

Soon as you hook the iPhone up as a modem the data usage will spike 100x over. The 5 gig cap will get hit every month and then some by thousands of people that currently don't even use 100 megs a month. Casual check of the stock market or sporting scores is nothing compared to giving people full access to the web with a laptop. Hulu, Netflix, Slingbox etc... will burn 5 gigs in less than 20 hours streaming at 3g speeds.

I've run a slingbox watching live TV at work thru a Verizon 3g card and it was burning 200 megs an hour on average. This is exactly how data usage goes up once it's permited.

I'm sure you seen the articles about people getting $5,000 or $20,000 data usage bills from various carriers? Every single time it's some kid playing WoW or watching 100's of hours of steaming video. Parents don't have a clue about mobile data cards or usage amounts and the kids don't either.

Until we see full LTE technology and they have the bandwidth to support streaming video, we will see data caps of 5gigs and $60 monthly charges. The hardware maybe ready for unlimited bandwidth from the phone/laptop standpoint but the 3g network is no where able to handle the huge influx the iPhone user base would bring if tethering were all the sudden free to everyone.
 
Does NetShare work on iPhone OS 3.0?

Hello,
I am about ready to install iPhone 3.0 (I'm a developer), but am worried about losing tethering (at least for a while). Has anyone here installed 3.0 on a phone and checked to see if Netshare still works?

Thanks!
 
If, as iPhone users, we're already paying atleast $60 per month for unlimited data, this should also apply whether we're using it on our iPhone or not. It is also not likely that it would be used gigabytes more than the usage on the iPhone already.
 
I wonder if you can turn on and off tethering as needed. During months I wish to travel I may want this, otherwise, they can pound sand.

I'm new to ATT got an iPhone for myself, and then within month got two more the the family. I got slammed a little in that ATT tends to charge ahead for services to the end of the billing period. So, my guess is if you can add and drop tethering over and over, you need to watch when you do it or you would have already paid for the month if your into that billing period.

I'd pay for it when I need it otherwise.
 
If, as iPhone users, we're already paying atleast $60 per month for unlimited data, this should also apply whether we're using it on our iPhone or not. It is also not likely that it would be used gigabytes more than the usage on the iPhone already.

we're only paying $30 for unlimited data. just like every other phone.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11 Safari/525.20)

I'm sure that most carriers around the world, specially those that are offering limited data plans will want tethering enabled, since customers will use more data and may end paying extra or purchasing a plan with a higher limit.
 
That's going to be fantastic. If my siblings are hammering the broadband connection I could just plug in my iPhone and carry on teh internets.

This is all getting very awesome.
 
The tethering appears to "shift" the home icons once the top portion changes to blue and Internet Tethering shows up. They seem to be displaced.

Again, beta, I know. But stating observations.

edit: Upon further investigation, it seems that only rows 1,2,3 are modified. Row 4 and Dock are left alone. I kind of like it and think the smooth animation could be neat.

Isnt that exactly how it works on 2.x while you are in a call?
 
Actually they can't notice difference from regular iphone internet use, atleast not straight. :)

I just don't understand issue with mobile broadbands in the usa. In here I know lot of people who gave up with adsl and are only using mobile broadband.. (I have one too for iphone, 2mb for 18e/month without limits). Some use basic tethering from phone, some use those usb modems, some use wlan stations what has modem...

And as far as I know there are lot of european countries with almost same situation (don't know about UK).

Not sure that mobile broadband is that popular in the UK, but it ain't that difficult to find free Wifi (all of our McDonalds have it for example). Though it is pretty cheap, my cable company charges £5 a month for 1Gb through a 3G dongle which doesn't seem too bad.

Thing is, I just don't have any real need for mobile broadband most of the time and when I do I'll just go somewhere with free Wifi instead. Even if they do offer tethering I can't see me using it much, lugging the laptop around is a pain and not normally necessary.

But it will be good if they offer it. I can't see any reason for them to charge more for it provided you stay within the limits of their definition of unlimited. I think O2 UK is 1Gb a month on the iPhone.
 
ATT tethering

So does ATT just not allow it to work following those instructions or will it not work at all if you have att, i just tyred (i have att) it didnt work but that dosent mean i even did it right or not
 
How would they charge for use of it if it is already included in the OS on the phone? Would ATT somehow be able to tell that you were tethering to your computer rather than surfing the net in your phone's browser? Or would they simply rely on you going over your "unlimited data" cap of 5 GBs?
If the screen shots are any indication, you have to activate tethering on the phone.
If you don't have a data plan, they'll probably charge you by either KB or MB (probably KB, knowing AT&T). It's no different from the way they charge you for individual text messages when you don't have a text plan.
By the way, it is much easier to go over the 5 GB when you're on your computer. Between video, d/l, etc., you can easily overload AT&T's pitiful network in no time flat. Read bossxii's post about why we're likely to never get free tethering.
There's $30 good reasons why I was never interested in tethering in the first place.
 
How would they charge for use of it if it is already included in the OS on the phone? Would ATT somehow be able to tell that you were tethering to your computer rather than surfing the net in your phone's browser? Or would they simply rely on you going over your "unlimited data" cap of 5 GBs?

When you are on a 5 GB plan, you are not actually paying for 5 GB per month. You are paying for the average use of people on this plan, which is likely 1 GB per month, and that is what you are charged for.

The phone company will definitely know whether your net access is for the iPhone itself or for tethering. The iPhone knows, therefore the phone company knows. And with tethering, people can very easily go way beyond what the normal average use is. If they just relied on your 5 GB limit, then people using tethering would suddenly use five times more data than the amount the phone company used in their cost calculation.

A great solution would be free light tethering (say 100 MB per month), and being able to buy a tethering allowance from the iPhone at any time.

That's going to be fantastic. If my siblings are hammering the broadband connection I could just plug in my iPhone and carry on teh internets.

This is all getting very awesome.

The cost of supplying one GB of data through 3G is ten times higher or more than through your phone line. So dream on. You will either get a significant monthly cost for limited GB, or you will get a message every two hours "Would you like to pay another $9.99 for the next GB of data? "

So is it possible to currently get an iPhone running the 3.0 beta working with tethering on the AT&T network? (If not, then the steps below might be pointless) This developer looks like he is on the O2 network so I am just wondering if it works the same way in the US.

Here's my idea to get around having to pay an extra $30 a month:
1) Join the Apple developer team for $100 and get the 3.0 beta running
2) Figure out how to get tethering working just like this guy has it running (I bet someone will have figured out within a week and steps will be circulating on the Internet shortly after)
3) Use tethering for no extra charge on you iPhone and never upgrade to the regular 3.0 version when it comes out in the summer. (so AT&T won't make you pay)

I hope this could be a possibility for anyone that wants tethering!

You forgot one step: Read your agreement with Apple and your agreement with AT&T very, very careful before you try this. Imagine you do this and AT&T has something in their terms that allows them charging you $1 per MB of tethered data.
 
NetShare works on 3.0

Hello,
I am about ready to install iPhone 3.0 (I'm a developer), but am worried about losing tethering (at least for a while). Has anyone here installed 3.0 on a phone and checked to see if Netshare still works?

Thanks!

Just to answer my own question: Yes. it works. This is being posted through NetShare presently.
 
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