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148 Comments
- Dalhectar, on 11/10/2008, -1/+110My only problem with tethering is that it should be free with the phone's data plan. No one is going to hook up their iPhone to their Mac and still use mobile safari while the phone is plugged in, so paying extra for data going through 1 device is stupid beyond belief.
But do I want to pay a monthly charge for a service I might use once a month? Not really, so for me tethering just makes more sense than buying a separate data card. And the market won't change until some company breaks away from the old model and customers jump ship to the new "1 data charge for all connected devices on a plan" idea. - mmittimm, on 11/10/2008, -2/+87It's better than no internet.
- JohnFrum, on 11/10/2008, -0/+39He had some good points but is off the mark on some.
"The data translation and transmission through USB or Bluetooth just wrecks the online experience."
USB or Bluetooth is not the bottleneck. - Nyaos, on 11/10/2008, -0/+39Example of why I tether:
Going on a long road trip, it's easier to browse the internet with a laptop than an iPhone. Also it's free at the moment with certain tools, when compared to a monthly charge for a network card. - whiteknives, on 11/10/2008, -0/+331.8mbps on my ATT Tilt with a 120ms ping. That's twice as fast as my first DSL subscription. This article is *****.
- SoopaflySAM, on 11/10/2008, -2/+33I miss Tetherball in elementary :(
- brandita, on 11/10/2008, -3/+33The only good kind of tethering involves attaching a ball to a string and hitting it around mindlessly.
- elie195, on 11/10/2008, -3/+33Article is flawed.
iPhone tethering is not a hassle with pdaNet, and its free.
Takes about a minute to have everything up and running.
Slow? 3G is not slow. - masterkenobi, on 11/10/2008, -0/+26You forgot to mention that you need to jailbreak your iPhone in order to use this app.
- sockpuppets, on 11/10/2008, -0/+19It's still better than no internet.
- GodAImighty, on 11/10/2008, -3/+20This guy is a moron, using programs like WMWifiRouter lets you use your phone as a wireless modem that broadcasts your data without the stupid USB cables. And if you use Verizon or Sprint your data network is around 2mbps on EVDO, more than enough to stream videos online. I've been tethering my data plan to my laptop since I first figured it out and its great not having to look for and piggy back any wifi router you can find.
Bashing tethering because you're too retarded to figure out how to 'balance your phone'? Come on for crying out loud. Having internet where ever there is a cell signal should more than outweigh any of those negatives, however frivolous. - osko2052, on 11/10/2008, -0/+15T Mobile has free tethering on Unlimited BlackBerry Data Plan in the USA.
- agaiziunas, on 11/10/2008, -0/+1510 years ago dial-up used to be $24.99/mo. for 2400baud access, maximum of 20 hours a month online, and on top of that the local access number was long distance. Talk about $100/mo. for internet access that took you 2 minutes to download a 300x400 image. And that's $100/mo. in mid 90's dollars.
$60/mo. for unlimited, nationwide, wireless, high-speed (several Mbit) internet is something I only DREAMED of back then. Think of where it will be in another 10 years.
Gigabit, public internet access over whitespace frequencies? Who knows, but it's still better off than where it used to be. - inyearstocome, on 11/10/2008, -0/+15I have been tethering with a normal EVDO motorola phones on Verizon for 5 years, and on average got speeds faster than most basic DSL. Dunno wtf he's complaining about.
- 70518, on 11/10/2008, -0/+13I have no idea what this guy is talking about. I was sitting in the Atlanta airport three days ago and I was "surfing". I mean youtube, vids, image sites etc... The speed is not like my cable service at home but its plenty to get around Digg or any other site. I downloaded a couple large emails and responded to some and for the most part didn't notice the fact I was shorter on bandwidth. Maybe he doesn't know what he is doing.
- ronintetsuro, on 11/10/2008, -0/+11"It's our "punishment" for not accepting the absurdly high price for a separate data plan. "
No, we are being punished by the phone companies for their failure to invest in the kind of infrastructure that can deliver speed and reliability. Both wired and wirelessly, they sacrifice progress in the name of profit because we will continue to pay for some of the most bottom tier service in the developed world AND LIKE IT.
Buried as inaccurate. - isntreal, on 11/10/2008, -0/+11I get 300 kbps steady with my verizon EVDO, and minimal lag.
- creepydarkwurm, on 11/10/2008, -1/+11A year ago someone in Canada, tethered their phone to their computer and ended up getting an 85,000 dollar bill from the cell company. I haven't looked lately, but last time I looked at the tethering option it was like 8 dollars a MB with Telus.
Link to story about 85,000 dollar cellular bill.
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/story.html?i ... - masterkenobi, on 11/10/2008, -2/+12I don't want to know any iPhone user unless she's hot.
- AyaJulia, on 11/10/2008, -0/+9They cost that much because people keep paying that much.
- Tyrghast, on 11/10/2008, -1/+10Why does wireless internet and cell phone service cost so much? The towers were bought and paid for a long time ago, and nearly everything is automated nowadays.
- mmittimm, on 11/10/2008, -0/+8I read the article, I got the point of it. The guy just doesn't have a good grasp on the workings of the cell providers.
- psYcon, on 11/10/2008, -1/+9Stupid article. I used a 3G tethered iphone connection for approximately 2 weeks and was even able to stream HQ videos with no issues. This was during the time while I was waiting for my highspeed cable internet to be installed.
- aussiecarlos, on 11/10/2008, -0/+7"It's our "punishment" for not accepting the absurdly high price for a separate data plan."
You guys in the US don't know how good you have it when it comes to data pricing. You get an unlimited data plan for only $30. We can only dream of that here in Australia. For $30 that barely gets us 300MB. Stop complaining! - blackinthmiddle, on 11/10/2008, -1/+8@Norumeni
3G is fast. What are you comparing it to? If you're comparing to your home internet connection, obviously it's no fast. However, if you compare it to other smart phones, it's fast. There was a comparison done between it and the G1 and the iPhone consistently beat it out.
And I don't know about the iPhone (I haven't jailbroken mine), but when I had my BlackJack, surfing the web while tethered was much faster than surfing the web through my BlackJack. If you notice, using an iPhone with a wi-fi connection isn't that much faster than 3G. The bottleneck seems to be the processor. No phone processor right now will allow pages to be rendered as quickly as if you tether and surf through a computer. I'm not sure what the author is talking about, because when I used to tether with my blackjack and had a 3G signal, I could download at a pretty reasonable rate (probably around 20-30 KB/s). - Twee, on 11/10/2008, -0/+7Profits. The AT&T executives need to keep their personal jets in good working order.
- jimmies, on 11/10/2008, -0/+6I know, and I agree. The point still seems to be getting missed though.
- mmilton, on 11/11/2008, -0/+6Nationalize wireless Internet at broadband speeds and offer it for free. The ISP's and cell phone providers can charge for higher bandwidth services. That would be a dramatic infrastructure change that would transform our economy and spur innovation.
- inactive, on 11/10/2008, -3/+9The guy missed a major reason you'd need to tether: Some idiot decided that the MacBook, already crippled by the lack of Firewire, didn't need an ExpressCard slot either.
- dracken, on 11/10/2008, -1/+7Well,
Data through mobile devices is the last bastion of rip off artists who meter data and charge absurd amount of money for it. It will change soon though with progress in technology.
Do you remember the time (6 years back or so) when the TOS of ISPs explicitly prohibited you from using routers or switches to share your connection with other computers ? They used to "register" the mac address of the computer from which the connection was activated, then people started selling routers which could "clone" the mac address of any computer. ISPs then gave up and started allowing home networking.
Similarly tethering is useful in the sense that soon mobile data providers will realize the futility of restricting tethering, which will open the floodgates to unlimited voice (why pay for minute overages when you can tether and skype call anyone) and unlimited SMS (you can tether and IM or run an IM client on your phone). - Twee, on 11/10/2008, -2/+8Only if you jailbreak it or bought the app for the two weeks it was out before it got taken off the app store.
- seville99, on 11/10/2008, -1/+6As someone who tethers frequently, let me set everyone straight. First, I have crappy dsl at my home so it's nice to use my phone for a boost sometimes. As for getting a separate card, my phone has unlimited data while every card out there now has a 5GB monthly cap. So one movie and I am done. It is a pain not being able to charge my phone while tethering but until the air card plans come with unlimited minutes, I'm not changing.
- lcmatt, on 11/10/2008, -0/+4I take it this is just American related then? My phone is currently connected to my laptop via 3G, the current signal strength is giving me 4300kbps d/l / 320kbps u/l and I don't pay anything extra a month through Orange UK (data is unlimited).
Sounds like you're being ripped off - umbrellainabin, on 11/10/2008, -1/+5Has noone in the UK heard of Three???
PAYG Broadband anyone?
been using it for a couple of months 7.5mbps using a Dongle - inactive, on 11/11/2008, -0/+4Hot damn, you're into some kinky *****.
- lilmikey, on 11/10/2008, -1/+5Jailbreaking a 3G iPhone with Windows or Mac is actually ABSURDLY simple - the only downside is that it voids your warranty (granted, the entire process can be reversed, but it's my opinion if they got in and messed around with the device's code itself, they would be able to tell it has been jailbroken before).
http://blog.iphone-dev.org/post/50888951/redmond-w ... : Info on Windows Jailbreaking for iPhone 2.1
I am a big fan of jailbreaking the iPhone, as now my device does everything it SHOULD be able to do out of the box, video, sound and theme modifications, and most importantly, PDANet - the ability to carry around a 3G Wi-Fi hotspot in your pocket is 100% worth it to me. - rald84, on 11/10/2008, -3/+7whoa. i thought the title was refering to bungee jumping and was going to have a funny video
::disappointed:: - nodeuces, on 11/10/2008, -12/+16What a dumb, *****-tard. This is so incredibly stupid - BURY
- DRT23, on 11/10/2008, -0/+4Uhhh, if you have like an unlimited data plan to just access the internet on your phone, you can use it as a modem for your laptop using a small program called PDAnet.
I get speeds of 1.5MB/s using my Motorola Q9c via Sprint's unlimited vision data plan which I have as an add-on for $5/month. - cowboy86, on 11/10/2008, -0/+4 I'm posting this on a tethered Blackberry right now. Been doing it for over 7 months. The browsing speeds are quick. But I'm not going to go around downloading full length movies either. 1MB d/l 1MB u/l isn't bad for a tethered phone. Does the job very well for just browsing.
- darkein, on 11/10/2008, -0/+4I have at&t and an at&t tilt (Htc kaiser)
I enabled HSPA (through a small hack) on the phone and I got about 1,500kbps
Not bad.... but still the data plan was 30 bucks a month = not worth it. - dubiousmike, on 11/10/2008, -1/+5speeds are almost acceptable. Latency is REALLY bad. Good luck reqriting your own data rules for cell phone companies as the author suggested...
WiMax may (in theory) fix some of this... - TunaFishGangsta, on 11/10/2008, -0/+4Different providers have different options for data from the phone. So if you use the internet once in a blue moon to look up a restaurant online, then the price per unit of data might work. But if you hook your phone up to your computer, watch out!
I used to do wireless data tech support and people would get routed to us who had like $30,000-$100,000 bills due to data use, and this happened on a pretty regular basis, quite frankly. In my experience people like that always got it credited off as long as they chose to block data altogether or get a data plan.
The point being, it happens a lot more than you hear about. - uknowwhoibe, on 11/10/2008, -5/+9Jailbreaking a 3G iPhone is very difficult.
/sigh - AndrewWiggin, on 11/10/2008, -0/+4Agreed. Tethering with pdaNet is easy to set up and I find it more than acceptable as a make-shift way to connect to the internet (no one is using tethering as their only connection, right?).
Regarding the jailbreak, you only have to do that once, and many people who know what tethering is have already jailbroken.
One caveat is lag time. 3G is not slow by any means (I live in Canada, I don't know about the US), but what can slow you down is sometimes there are lag times around 300-400 ms which sucks, but it's still far faster than dail-up, and again, it's a supplemental connection, so deal with it. - AndrewWiggin, on 11/10/2008, -0/+4"So if you use the internet once in a blue moon to look up a restaurant online, then the price per unit of data might work."
No, no, no, no it does not at all. If you did that in Canada without a dataplan it would cost you about $50 (assuming you used 1 mb of data through googling and finding the webpage, hoping that there's no big pictures to load long the way). The point is, you can't do that. Your only option is a data plan (or block data altogether, which is what most people I know do). - inactive, on 11/10/2008, -0/+4I think that's the main point of it at the end. These guys don't owe people cheap ubiquitous broadband. they're still a company trying to make some profits. I think it's bull, but they have no obligation to do it cheaper.
- qbthemc, on 11/10/2008, -0/+3I buried this since I use tethering for porn.
- WasabiBomb, on 11/10/2008, -1/+4What a stupid article.
A few weeks ago, my wife and I were in the middle of moving, so we were without cable or internet at our new place. Problem was, we wanted to see the final Presidential debate.
We tethered my computer to her AT&T HTC Smartphone, and watched the debate stream live. Tethering rocks, and I'm just pissed that I can't do it with my iPhone. -
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