Tethered
June 25, 2010 by Cynthia
When I said I wanted to be tethered, I meant “use my iPhone to connect my laptop to the Internet when I’m out and about.” I did NOT mean tethered as in “chained to AT&T in a weird kind of neverending technological bondage.”
AT&T obviously thought I meant the latter.
I’ve just upgraded to the new iPhone operating system, iOS4, in part because it included tethering. Tethering is something that most other web-connected phones offer as a matter of course. It’s available for iPhone in other countries, wherever AT&T doesn’t have the monopoly on subscribers. (I swear, AT&T is the single best reason I know to jailbreak the iPhone.) AT&T says it doesn’t offer tethering in the US because everyone would try to use it and swamp the network. Given AT&T’s crummy network, that’s probably true.
iOS4 took some doing to install (more on that later), but once it was, tethering was the first thing I tried. I clicked over to the General Settings folder, found the (oh-sweet-mysteries-of-life!!) tethering option, and turned it on.
Up pops a message: “To enable tethering on this account contact AT&T…” I called and, after the usual voicemail hell, the sales rep seemed bewildered. “Tethering? Let me look that up.”
A couple minutes later, she returned. “Yes, ma’am, we can enable tethering for your phone. You will have to choose a new data plan, however.”
Now, my current data plan, which gives me unlimited data downloads on my iPhone for $30/month, is a bone of contention with AT&T. They insist that data hogs–and not AT&T’s inadequate infrastructure–are what’s causing all the network problems. (Never mind that AT&T merrily promotes downloading iPhone apps and movies and anything else they can shove down the pipeline–it’s their single biggest salespitch).
But when the choice is charging more or investing in infrastructure, what do you think they’ll do? Existing users who make a change to their iPhone plan must give up the old unlimited data choice and either opt for a $15/month plan which restricts downloads to 200MB per month, or a $25 plan for two monthly gigabytes. Both have fairly hefty overage fees.
To put this in perspective, in the first 20 days of June I’ve downloaded 556MB. I average about 800MB/month, most of that coming from email and Kindle downloads. (You would have to be out of your mind to download a whole movie on AT&T’s network). So, theoretically, I could save $5/month by switching to the new $25/2GB plan, and not really be out much.
HOWEVER…”If you want tethering,” the rep continued, “You’ll need to use our new $45/month plan, which includes 2GB of data downloads per month and free tethering.”
Wait a minute. “I thought the 2GB plan was $25/month?”
“Yes, it is, ma’am, unless you want the free tethering option. Then it’s $45/month.”
“But another $20 per month isn’t free.”
“I know, but that’s what we’ve been told, ma’am. Shall I sign you up?”
I thought about it for exactly one nanosecond (or however long it takes the word “sucker” to pass my synapses) and declined.
So…still no tethering. Verizon’s offering the HTC Droid Incredible for the same price as a new iPhone, at half the monthly rate of my iPhone. With voice-controlled GPS, a faster processor and free tethering that really is free.
And their bloody network works. I’m weighing that against abandoning all the iPhone apps and movies I’ve downloaded, none of which are gonna work on a Droid.
Drat.
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I’m hoping you go with the Droid. I’ve got my eye on that for when my plan is up at the end of the year and would love to see you review it. Won’t Droid applications be catching up?
One thing a droid isn’t good for is dropping into 24′ of water. Yesterday my friend Steve dropped his off the dock in downtown Portland while talking to some other boaters. The waterfront is filling up with boaters for the waterfront blues festival. We tried dragging the bottom with a large magnet that I keep on my boat for things that get dropped overboard. No luck.
I really cant fathom at all why there is such a demand for the iphone 4. Lets count the reasons not to buy one:
1) Service provider: AT&T service is the worst. Dropped calls and sluggish data transfers are the NORM on their network. Trying to compensate for poor infrastructure and cvoerage with an antenna redesign is laughable. In the early days AT&T had tethering enabled and it DID just about take down their network.
2) As a phone it is pitiful: The Iphone call quality has always been substandard. I dread calls to and from my friends who have Iphones. And this really hasnt improved one bit with the 4.
3) It’s apple folks: Their closed architecture and poor business practices have always been repugnant and they are bad for the industry long term.
4) Web Browsing is substandard: The small screen and virtual keyboard makes this so. I prefer a small netbook to ANY of these devices when webbing. Small android tablets are on the way later this year from a lot companies. One of these will be my data device of choice.
Other than Apple fanboy/girl cool factor where are the positives?
Robert
Hey Robert,
I went with apple when the first (de)generation of iMacs came out. Boy was it cool looking. But,… I learned their motto to perfection. (You are forced to ) think differently. The hype sounded neat. I love to think differently. Still the blue box just didn’t want to work. Think as I might.
The service guy didn’t know what the procedure was to reboot the dear blue cube. That’s bad procedure if you got it turned on and it just won’t continue booting. What can be done? After about a week he got back to me (I called him until he finally gave in and talked to me again…) with the discovery of the week. Searching around…Eventually we found the hidden pin hole just above its anus. Ah yes, you can simulate a reboot. And it needed it fifteen or twenty times a day.
A year passed before the good ole green death crept upon us, just a hair out of guarentee. Tough break kid. At this point things began to look up though. I was digging out my old PC and seeing if it had rusted in the meantime. Joy. It hadn’t. Hey I can still get my design work done. Boy! And cruising the apple page where the good guys try to help the uninitiated I realized I was really not alone. Il check in there regularly to quiet my conscious about not being cool. Its very re-assuring.
I still relish the sweet memories of those moments when I finally decided that we were totally incompatible, and I proceeded to de-gut, hamstring and melt her down. One of my more successful fusing projects I think…You would not believe how many passer-bys paused to rummage the cardboard box containing all the dismantled goodies, ever so carefully smashed into that container awaiting the truck that removes these unsightly household disasters when their limited usefulness has reached its inevitable end.. I did see someone actually carry off the imation disk. Can’t imagine why.
rots of ruck babes.
ss
as an after thought. I only use the windoze cause I have XP pro and what can be a better choice from windoze camp? I am slowly but surely learning to live Linux Ubuntu. Its kinda like DOS on an Apple if ya get down in the nitty gritty, but it functions better than either and the new versions are the best experience of the things that I’ve tried on a computer.
ss
it is not $45 + $20 for tethering. it’s a $25 data plan plus $20 for tethering. At least be accurate if you are going to be outraged.
Uhm–at least read accurately if you’re going to correct somebody, greg. No, it’s not a $25 data plan plus $20 for tethering. According to AT&T, the plan is $45 and it includes all the features of the $25 2GB plan with the additional feature of “free” tethering. Which is what I said.
And I’m not outraged, I’m simply not falling for it.
Robert, I gotta admit that there are a lot of positives. For me, the Apple coolth factor is ‘way down the list (in fact, where I live it makes you one of the herd, which I can’t stand). What I like: The mapping/quasi-GPS, which–when I got the phone–was better than any other I’d tried, the integration between email, web, phone and a half-dozen other features, voicemail, the extreme customizability of the apps, apps being probably the biggest attractor. I would estimate that I’m using 3rd-party apps at least twice as much as the ones that came with the phone.
To be honest, I use it less as a phone and more as a hand-held computer. I would agree that it pretty much sucks as a phone. My problem now is that the new iOS has introduced a bunch of things that don’t seem to work very well or require additional subscription money with reduced features, and some of the older features I relied on, such as GPS, seem to have developed problems. SO….looking at Droids and moving back to Verizon. But even if I do, I may keep the iPhone as an iPod Touch thing.
Hi and it’s great to read this. I thought I was the only one having this problem. My iPhone 3g had tethering before the rest of the class. When apple made the 3.0 update (that enabled mms) it had tethering built in. AT&T wouldn’t let it work but thanks to benM.at it worked great. Later updates of the ios 3 had tethering removed and was not able to be activated. I’m waiting for someone to come up with a way to turn it on without paying $25. In the mean time I’ve turned my iPhone 3G on again and use my iPhone 4 as a iPod touch. You can downgrade your iPhone 3G to ios 3.0.1 and after installing a profile have tethering working like a champ. If anyone is interested in doing this I can walk you through changing the env setting so the phone starts up.
JAILBREAK YOUR IPHONE… AND YOU CAN TETHER FOR **FREE**, The way I see it, the TelComs are already raping us with their exorbitant prices and ridiculous fees, I feel as though I’m already paying them my dues for this service.