Rogers and Fido to Keep iPhone Tethering Free (with some Caveats)

Rogers (and subsidiary Fido) announced today via their RedBoard blog that the initial free tethering promotion for the iPhone would become the official policy going forward -- free tethering for everyone. Almost.

Effective immediately, tethering will continue to be included at no additional charge for Rogers and Fido customers who subscribe to data plans of 1 GB and above (excluding those listed below).

"Those listed below" are:

Tethering cannot be used with data plans of less than 1 GB. Also, it cannot be used with the new 1 GB+ One Rate Roaming plans (except Rocket stick plans), Family Shared Data & Voice Plans and Smartphone & Rocket stick shared data plans.

Complaints are already piling up about some of those exclusion in the blog comments, of course.

This policy also applies to BlackBerry, Android (if supported by the OS), and all other smartphones with qualifying data plans.

Since I was posting via iPhone Bluetooth tether from a local coffee shop yesterday, I for one appreciate and will make good use of it. However, our frigid Canadian hearts go out to our US friends who, 9 months later, still haven't heard word one from AT&T about official iPhone tethering...

Rene Ritchie is one of the most respected Apple analysts in the business, reaching a combined audience of over 40 million readers a month. His YouTube channel, Vector, has over 90 thousand subscribers and 14 million views and his podcasts, including Debug, have been downloaded over 20 million times. He also regularly co-hosts MacBreak Weekly for the TWiT network and co-hosted CES Live! and Talk Mobile. Based in Montreal, Rene is a former director of product marketing, web developer, and graphic designer. He's authored several books and appeared on numerous television and radio segments to discuss Apple and the technology industry. When not working, he likes to cook, grapple, and spend time with his friends and family.