Well, Maybe Sometime in 2010

[Jeff Campbell]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.9to5mac.com/iphone-att-tether' target='_blank'>http://www.9to5mac.com/iphone-att-tether</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"AT&amp;T's iPhone tethering is something near and dear to my heart. In fact, I may or may not be writing this tethered to my iPhone on a train to New York City right now. We know tethering works on AT&amp;T's network because frankly, we've been doing it using only Apple's software since the iPhone 3.0 betas have been out (and before using PDAnet). To keep tethering possible, all we've had to do is not update to 3.1 - which isn't that easy"</em></p><p><em><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/at/auto/1255625907.usr105634.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></em></p><p>I wasn't really shocked or surprised by this, in fact I really didn't have much of a reaction. Tethering for me isn't a make or break deal, I can take it or leave it. Granted, it would be nice to have that option in case I needed it, but in my situation its not something I just have to have. What are your thoughts?</p>

[Sven Johannsen]

I agree with you Jeff. Nice to have the option, on my iPhone, or my WinMo, but certainly not a deal breaker. If I am in a situation that I can pull out the laptop and fire it up, there is a good chance I have WiFi available, and that is way easier than getting a tether set up.

I get there are those that are in a situation that makes connectivity attractive and WiFi unlikely, like a long train commute, but at that point I think I would opt for a data card, or one of the dirt cheap netbooks/laptops with 3G built in. The plan is expensive you say? Well so is a tethering plan if you tell AT&T you want to do that. Official tethering starts at $60 on top of the voice plan. With any luck, some might even get the company to fork over for the data plan.

Personnally I think AT&T should just live up to the 5G limit on data on the 'unlimited' plan regardless if you are downloading data via your phone and displaying it on the phone, or on a laptop. It is the same data, coming down over the same network. Yea, I might be tempted to do more if I have the bigger screen in front of me, but I pay a certain amount for a certain level of service. If they are acknowledging that they can't deliver the level of service they are selling...well, there is an FTC and FCC to deal with that sort of thing I think. I can't see the argument, "Yes we said all you could eat, but we didn't expect folks to eat that much" holding much water.