iPhone Tethering: Soon Is in the Eye of the Beholder
By Harry McCracken | Friday, September 4, 2009 at 10:01 am
On November 6th of last year at the Web 2.0 conference, AT&T Mobility President and CEO Ralph De La Vega told the audience that the company would soon let AT&T customers tether their iPhones to laptops as a wireless modem. I blogged about it and called it cheery news. And waited. In June of this year, Apple announced that the iPhone OS 3.0 software would enable tethering, and that a bunch of carriers would offer it immediately–but AT&T wasn’t among them. It just said it would offer tethering at some unspecified date.
Yesterday, the company said that MMS for the iPhone was finally coming on September 25th. But its intentions about tethering are vaguer than ever–it isn’t promising a darn thing:
As for tethering, by its nature, this function could exponentially increase traffic on the network, and we need to ensure that some of our current upgrades are in place before we can deliver the expanded functionality with the excellent performance that customers expect. We expect to offer tethering in the future.
Fair enough, I suppose–except for the part about the company president telling customers and prospective customers that tethering was almost in place ten months ago. I wonder how many people plunked down money for an iPhone based in part on the not-unreasonable belief that “soon” meant…soon?
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Posts about apple iphone as of September 4, 2009 | Neto Cury Says:
September 4th, 2009 at 7:03 pm[…] PHONEWORLDLINK1@YAHOO.COM Attention : MobilRumah.Com is not responsible for the ad’s content. iPhone Tethering: Soon Is in the Eye of the Beholder – technologizer.com 09/04/2009 On November 6th of last year at the Web 2.0 conference, AT&T […]
September 4th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Carriers are evil money-grabbing bastards. Period.
They hate net-neutrality (Skype over 3G on the iPhone anyone?), keep prices of phones high (the ‘subsidisation’ is ridiculous: you pay 1680$ (24×70) and that only lowers the iPhone price by 300$ ??? the unsibsidised iPhone price use here is based on iPod touch prices and differences between the touch and the iPhone), and hold back technology (4G, optic fibre are ready NOW. Instead, carriers pretend 3G is a flashy new luxurious thing… And don’t try to make them excuses: Japan and Korea can do 3.5G/4G and the plans cost a third of the US/EU 3G plans…)
September 5th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Solution:
Mifi from Verizon =) Allows me to use my iPhone to download unlimited song and app sizes anywhere, plus get’s internet on my MBA.
September 7th, 2009 at 5:06 am
iPhone Tethering? Awesome feature it will be. AT&T took a long time to bring the MMS functionality. AT&T is gradually developing and reconstructing things in as to provide a best service. Waiting to see how long will it take for AT&T to promote Tethering and keep its promise?
September 12th, 2009 at 9:34 am
AT&T data network is horrible, who would want to tether it? Go with the Pre and Sprint, much better experience if you want to tether.
September 13th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
want to tether? Go here on your iphone:
help.benm.at/tethering.php