Back in November Dieter told us about the Evil Empires (AT&T) plan to drain another $30 from all of it's iPhone owners if they wanted to tether with a laptop. Well according to TUAW this may be the week you have all been waiting for.
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blockquote>It's been under the rumor banner for some time now, but we've been told by a trusted source that the long-awaited AT&T iPhone-as-modem tethering plans (preliminary details in MacBlogz' post from November: 5 GB data cap, $30/month supplementary cost) may be ready for prime time during Macworld Expo this week. The tethering announcement might not rise to a keynote-worthy level; it could simply be publicized as a press release during the show.
So what will you get for your $30 a month??? 5 GB data cap... A bit steep don't you think? Then again would you expect anything else from AT&T? I know the few times I would actually be tethering, I'd willing to take that risk on the Jailbroken app. Are you willing to pay that much for this service or are you more willing to Jailbreak your iPhone 3G and roll the dice with a program such as PdaNet?
Sound off in the comments!
[Via TUAW]
Reader comments
AT&T Tethering Plans to Drop This Week?
Wow. 30$ and the data is capped. AT&T sucks balls.
No thanks, AT&T.
The iPhone, with FTP and remote apps, has replaced the need for dragging my MacBook around tethered.
Interesting... you can't say f@rt or cr@p here, but you can say "sucks balls?" :lol:
Unfortunately I think every provider except AT&T does tethering for free. I hope the others don't follow suit by starting to charge for it. My rogers is capped at 6gb. Hopefully they will realize that since it's already capped it shouldn't matter to them how I use it
I don't know about now, but as of a year or two ago Sprint was charging $40 to tether... and that didn't even support Macs unless you used an inconvenient workaround.... one of the main reasons I was happy to leave them after 11 years (of decent service). Then when I tell them I'm leaving and getting an iPhone, they have the nerve to try to sell me an Instinct instead... HA! yeah, right! I've only been waiting how many years for Apple to make a smartphone while you clowns never supported Macs? F-off!
PdaNet is good enough for me..
It seems like Apple & AT&T can't get anything completely right. Something like this should be no more than an extra 10$ at the most!
Sorry folks, as much as I'd like to agree - this is the going rate and policy from just about all wireless providers. And its way cheaper than $60/month for a 3g laptop card....
I just don't get why you would even bother tethering with your iPhone. Why did you buy an iPhone if that is what you are going to do? You can browse the internet very nicely on the iPhone, no reason to lug around a laptop.
If your going to tether get something else, your wasting the iPhone that someone else could be enjoying.
I'd be interested, but I moved from a $40 data plan with tethering on my motoq to a $30 iPhone plan without tethering... I'd be in if it was $10 more, but I don't think I'll pull the trigger on it for $30 more. Also, I am not sure I feel comfortable jailbreaking my iPhone that I just got for Christmas.
i agree with maybe the 10 extra dollars. But i had a blackberry and tethered it with bluetooth and enjoyed doing that when i wanted to send a file or something that i didnt have on my phone. or the occasional isp outage from time warner. Any other reason is pretty useless. Becuase the reason we have iphone is to browse the web (especially a 3g one with wifi) in a manner similar to our laptops. Most smartphone users use their smartphone as a device that does mostly everything before you get to your desktop or laptop.
Wtf are you talking about, Sting? "Wasting your iPhone?" I use my iPhone all the time for what it was intended for. But I'm often in situations where I'm at work and need all the robust features of my laptop - sending reports, group email lists, handling documents, maybe a little cut and paste -- and a phone, no matter how good, can't replace all the reasons I need my work computer connected to the internet. There is not wifi everywhere, and I am not paying out of pocket for a 3G card and account for the laptop, so tethering off my phone has always been a perfectly fine solution for me.
Um, AT&T price gouging? Try "industry standard" price gouging. Verizon does the exact same thing. So does Sprint. T Mobile doesn't care, yet, due to not having a network WORTH tethering with.
Sprint: Additional $30 a month, 5 gig cap.
Verizon: Additional $30 a month, 5 gig cap.
Alltel: Ate up by Verizon.
Nothing new here, people. Be mad at ALL the cell companies for upselling data. You should be more mad at how overpriced SMS messages are. 21cents per message? It probably costs the company half a penny to send those.
$30 seems more than I'd be willing to pay, but I'll be interested to see how this thethering works on the new iPhone software. The current jailbroken methods are hacks as far as I'm concerned -- setting up adhoc wifi networks, limiting you to a proxied connection, etc. I'd like my laptop to see my iPhone as a bluetooth modem that I can connect to and use as a real network connection so my unsupported VPN client can connect through it, along with the various other network aware, non-proxy supporting applications I have on my laptop. $30/month more isn't in the budget right now, but maybe down the road if the software support is 1st rate.
It's good ATT business for ATT.
Their gamble is yet to pay off with the iPhone.
With 900M loss since their association, it makes sense to pick up revenue wherever they can get away with.
I would participate in this tethering if I could justify it with a return in business revenue.
I'm enjoying the iphone experience and this makes business life easier.
Eventually, clients will help pay for the increase with my own increase to them.
If I were to divide the monthly fee by the number of apps, each app is costing about $1/month per app for 2 people.
It's a new way of paying for software.
Count me in until I can find a cheaper way to get the same experience.
Do you think the tethering will be via bluetooth or the USB cable?
I'm very happy with PDANet, and I doubt a bluetooth option would make me pay $360 a year, but it would be cool. :)
Never had the need to teather, but i know my options when i find the need to.
I’d be interested
I wish we could get 5gb for only $30 here!
I'll stick to using NetShare for free thank you...I still think that the iPhones browser is good enough without having to tether but to each their own if you're willing to shell out 30 big ones for something you are already paying for, go for it.
Wifi is everywhere, I don't need it
Tethering comes included with the plan here in Canada. It is not against policy to tether.
I'm not going to pay $120 a month(lowest plan and lowest SMS plan) to tether. I'd consider $10 more a month. PDAnet is perfect for me right now. I do use it sparingly. $30 more for unlimited or at least 50gb per month, I would consider it. 5gb goes FAST on a laptop.
forget at&t... Pdanet will provide internet for those few times I need it.
I think this $30 more for iPhone it's ridiculous it should be free for everyone who owns an iPhone cuz the data plan that we have as iPhone owners is very expensive already.
You know that AT&T is not going to loose money if.they put this iPhone as a modem they always wants to be the victim
As previously commented about the rates AT&T is fixing to tethering. All providers that have a robust 3g Network cost the same. Standalone Modems $60/5Gb Cap, PDA Tethering $30/5Gb Cap. There is a whisper in the wind of removing the cap in the future. Right now they have it in place to help grow the 3g network and help work on building the infrastructure on it to open the speeds to higher bandwidths.
@ethan about SMS messaging. It does not cost any cell provider anything to send these messages. Have you ever wondered why there is a 160 character max on them? They are stuffed into other packets crossing the network as filler. Now on the other hand MMS the minimum size of the packet sent with a blank message is 1.4kb. They charge for this unless you have Unlimited Messaging.
Don't demonize a company for trying to make a buck. You want to attack some one attack the government for taxes. Corporations pay their taxes just like we do. But they pass all theirs on to the consumer either directly via government regulations (Look at your cell bill or next time you replace your battery in your car, or your tires or your oil). Or in higher prices.
I MIGHT spring for a $10 plan and definitely would go for a $5 plan. Since I'm retired, about the only time I would have a use for tethering is on road trips and I probably only do less than 6 annually. The main usage would be at airports since most hotels/motels offer free WiFi. However, some still charge an annoying $10 per day and I would rather pay a little to ATT than pay some hotel/motel to "hold me up".
Since my usage would be very limited, I would especially be interested in a $5 plan that had a limited cap (say 1GB per month) that carried forward IF not used.
If ATT doesn't come up with something that is reasonable for my usage, I'll be jail-breaking my IP when my 2 year contract is up in mid '10.
I'm beginning to think people who have iPhones really shouldn't because 1/2 don't know what they are talking about. 5GB per month, is ALOT, your stupid if your using your iPhone to download that much. Every ISP has a CAP some way or other. Its to ensure ALL People can utilize the Bandwidth each company is allowed. But people want to feel cool and tether to their laptops because they can need to get a life, instead of complaining over and over about this. and NO i do not work for At&t but I do work for a ISP (Non-Wireless).
I purchased an LG VU on ATT 2 months ago for this purpose. The VU is NOT as good as an iPhone, but I did not purchase it with that expectation. I bought it with the knowledge that I would use the 3g network for tethering b/c I cannot get broadband at my house in the country...I would describe the 3g-tethering connection as "unstable" b/c it constantly disconnects for no apparent reason. So that's sad, especially as I am paying $60 a month for this service. At least ATT is beefing up its 3g network now, but if they start charging me separately for every bit of data I use (youtube, music, etc) then I will drop this subscription which totals $110/month like a bad habit. BTW, the plan is $60/a month b/c tethering is #30 EXTRA over and above the $30 internet on your phone plan, in the ATT world.