Want to Tether? AT&T Says Okay, Soon

[Cody Overcash]

When interviewed at the Web 2.0 Summit AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph De La Vega made it officially known that an AT&T approved tethering plan/method for using your iPhone's 3g connection to browse the internet from a laptop is coming soon. This confirms the previous report that suggested that yes AT&T and Apple have been working on a tethering plan for some time.

Of course some important facts were not revealed like how soon and how much. If it is anything like the current blackberry tethering plans you'll have to shell out a significant amount of extra dough each month for the privilege of tethering your device.

Us jailbreakers know that there are a ton of great other options currently available for tethering making the prospect of having to spend more money for AT&T's approval not so enticing.

edit: Actually I'd like to know if anyone cares about AT&T's tethering plan so take our poll

[via mobilecrunch]

[KelvinalF]

wow now apple needs to follow with need parts for the iphone

[iBwizzle]

Dammit! You guys have no iDea what this means for the future of the iPhone! AT&T will definitely raise the data plan for the iPhone! $15 -> $30 -> $45! Call me cheap iF you want, but this iS the main reason iDidn't buy the 3G iPhone! iFor one, am sick of ownin' two (2) phones because one can't do what the other can do!
-mms (picture, video clip, voice)
-background capability
-native video record
-native iM (AOL, Yahoo, MSN, Google, etc.)
-32GB+
-front video camera
-3MP+
-metal casin'
-better battery
-copy & pasteiF this iSn't a worthy upgrade, then iDon't know what iS! Just my $0.02...

-sent from my iPhone
__________________
iGet enough exercise just pushin' my luck!

[Happy Noodle Boy]

Dammit! You guys have no iDea what this means for the future of the iPhone! AT&T will definitely raise the data plan for the iPhone! $15 -> $30 -> $45! Call me cheap iF you want, but this iS the main reason iDidn't buy the 3G iPhone! iFor one, am sick of ownin' two (2) phones because one can't do what the other can do!
-mms (picture, video clip, voice)
-background capability
-native video record
-native iM (AOL, Yahoo, MSN, Google, etc.)
-32GB+
-front video camera
-3MP+
-metal casin'
-better battery
-copy & pasteiF this iSn't a worthy upgrade, then iDon't know what iS! Just my $0.02...

-sent from my iPhone
__________________
iGet enough exercise just pushin' my luck!

Why even have an iPhone if all you're doing is complaining of what it doesn't have.

-why mms when you have e-mail? get with the times.
-get backgrounder
-get cycorder
-get beejive (or wait for push-services and get aim/palringo/whatever)
-learn to manage your space, you do NOT need your entire library with you. Learn to love playlists.
-why? video conference? Has anyone ever actually used that, ever?
-camera could be a little better, I'll give you that.
-the case is just fine as it is. If you want extra protection buy a shell for it.
-the 3G's battery is pretty damn awesome considering all it does. I can get 6 hours of heavy use with over 1 1/2 day of standby. And there's plenty of battery packs for the phone as it is.
-copy/paste is the 2nd point I'll concede.

[freepowder21]

the only two i will concede on are mms and copy and paste... i mean i do use e-mail, but my girlfriend does not... and now i am missing all the "fun" pictures that helped me get through my day at work... to be honest, i don't think any chicks use e-mail to send pictures over mobile phones, they are all about the mms and sms

[mgamber]

Would this allow usage of more than 5gb a month? I don't care about tethering per se but if I can go back to using data like I have for the past couple of years with other carriers, I'll sign up. Can't really answer the poll without this being answered.

[LGgeek]

I think you should have added "I would use it but don't want to pay extra" to the poll. For what AT&T is charging me it should be included.

[Rocketerz]

-why mms when you have e-mail? get with the times.
.

Are your serious? MMS is the new thing, e-mail is out (picture wise to cell phone). Get with the times.

[gadha]

Are your serious? MMS is the new thing, e-mail is out (picture wise to cell phone). Get with the times.

actually...i agree with him. With push email i sms less and less. Each international sms used to cost me $0.20...now i just email.

[Alperovich]

i'm not gonna vote b/c the poll doesn't have what i want.

Yes ,i want teather, no i don't love att but i know att and its gonna cost us to tether, just like sprint and verizon do. AND b/c of this, our jailbroken ways of tethering will be under even closer watch (data useagewise)

all i'm saying is ATT will charge us for tethering and it might screw up how we're tethering now b/c will catch on.

just sayin, guys.

[akosko01]

i'm not gonna vote b/c the poll doesn't have what i want.

Yes ,i want teather, no i don't love att but i know att and its gonna cost us to tether, just like sprint and verizon do. AND b/c of this, our jailbroken ways of tethering will be under even closer watch (data useagewise)

all i'm saying is ATT will charge us for tethering and it might screw up how we're tethering now b/c will catch on.

just sayin, guys.

I do like AT&T because i work for them. however Alperovich is absolutely correct. the charges will probably be exactly the same as the PDA and Blackberry plans. And AT&T probably IS able to track the data usage from the tethering on jailbroken phones now. They can tell the difference when trying to tether with just a regular data plan for the device you are carrying.

[KoNeko]

I actually think this is bad news for us Jailbreakers. AT&T will probably care more if people are using unauthorized methods for tethering since they'll be losing money on their own plan. They will probably catch many more people too and actually pay attention to whether or not people are doing it...

[allister362]

iPhone does a whole lot more than any other phone does. We need to remember that.

[mgamber]

Um...no? It might look better when it does what it does but it's far from the top of the functionality pile.

[Alperovich]

/\ function maybe, but he is talking about internet useage wise.

all suggesting, is if u use it for normal stuff, ie internet, email chat, download a song or something here and there. they can be passed of for normal iphone useage of the internet.

its when u start with more then that, like heavy useage, then they can see a spike all of sudden.

I've only tethered a few times since its been possible and only b.c i needed to do a few things on the laptop that i couldn't get access to on the iphone. most of the time the iphone works fine thou.

[CaptainChaos]

Tethering for most iPhone users is not going to be a great experience due to the limited availabilty of the 3G network, but it gives people another option. That within itself is cool due to the fact that you are already paying a grip of cash for the iPhone's data plan and it will kill the need to have a alternate pc card plan with AT&T.

There is a need for this, but not for everyone. It makes sense.

[name00]

honestly, tethering is pretty awesome optional. but i dont think u guys would pay more for it if ATT raised the damn price.
anyway , we've got PDAnet, (but i dont use it) i use terminal and 3tiny proxy instead.
WHY DO WE HAVE TO PAY MORE
3G is awesome but ATT is NOT

[CaptainChaos]

honestly, tethering is pretty awesome optional. but i dont think u guys would pay more for it if ATT raised the damn price.
anyway , we've got PDAnet, (but i dont use it) i use terminal and 3tiny proxy instead.
WHY DO WE HAVE TO PAY MORE
3G is awesome but ATT is NOT

AT&T works great for me. Always has.

With the tethering package available you can bet they will be paying closer attention to data usage.

[sziklassy]

Paying even more money to use the same internet/data that we already get on our iPhones... aside from maybe corporate accounts I see very few people jumping on board for this. Most cities where there is money already have wifi connectivity in every possible store anyway.

It is very easy to track which data comes from where... have you ever seen peoples sigs that say "you are using windows vista utimate have xxx gigs of ram and are on firefox 3.0"? )that is just an example. What it would take is to alter what information is sent out to the ISP from your computer... this can be done easily according to my friends who know more about computers than I do, however I just don;t have aneed for tethering where I am.

[WillyDavidK]

gah, way to take something that could be a good thing and make it absolutely suck ATT. If they open up tethering publicly by any means, it's just going to cause their cell towers to become even more overloaded than they already are. Not to mention like others have mentioned, once there is an official option available ATT will pay more attention to users tethering that haven't paid for the option.

Lastly, this should be included in an unlimited data plan, damnit!!!!