AT&T Still Working on iPhone Tethering
by John Paczkowski
Posted on October 8, 2009 at 9:21 AM PT
Looks like tethering on Apple’s iPhone is still a matter of “when and not if,” as AT&T likes to say.
Though the carrier’s decision to allow Internet telephony apps on its 3G network has lead some to speculate that the company will soon allow data tethering as well, that’s not the case. Evidently, there’s still a while to wait until AT&T (T) supports that long-promised feature, which it fears might exponentially increase network traffic and undermine sales of air cards.
Asked if AT&T’s new policy on Internet telephony apps heralded the arrival of iPhone tethering, a company spokesman repeated the same tired line we’ve been hearing for months now: “Whenever we offer new features, we want to offer the best possible customer experience. For tethering, we need to do some additional fine tuning to our systems and networks so that we do deliver a great experience.
And perhaps that’s for the best given the widespread complaints over the quality of AT&T’s network prior to iPhone tethering. If it’s as poor as some claim now, how poor might it be when Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone users begin tethering their MacBooks to it?
Comments
Yikes! We’ve had tethering here in Canada with Rogers since the arrival of iPhone OS 3. It’s seamless and works perfectly. For this one good thing, thank you, Rogers! Now we just need decent and affordable European roaming rates. Yikes, again!
Posted by Ian Kirkland at October 8th, 2009 at 10:46 amI’m an AT&T customer and interested in tethering, but I really don’t mind the growing pains because:
- AT&T are the only one building standard GSM across the whole US, they are building a real cell phone network that can run all of the world’s phones (Verizon can run less than 1% of the world’s phones)
- AT&T supplements their 3G with the largest Wi-Fi network in the US and their phones all have their Wi-Fi intact (Verizon has been pulling the Wi-Fi out of everything for years, even Blackberry)
- AT&T is only about 2 years old, in spite of the name, they are younger than the iPhone, which was introduced on Cingular (Verizon is much older, yet still has not adopted GSM)
- the AT&T/GSM model already won, it’s the way cell phones are sold in the 21st century: you choose any phone you like, you pay $X per month to get carrier service for it, but Verizon is still pretending that people shop for networks and not phones
- AT&T’s network is just the US part of a global cell network, when you’re on AT&T you can travel the world with your phone, US, Canada, Mexico, Europe, China, Japan, and so on
To me, Verizon and Sprint are not even in the cell phone game. They are off to the side playing a sucker game, charging people the same kinds of prices but giving them much, much less.
Posted by Fred Hamranhansenhansen at October 8th, 2009 at 7:49 pm