'iPhone as modem' tethering hack revealed!

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 24 July 2008 06:39

Business IT - Technology

According to cre.ations.net, "Tethering your iPhone is against the iPhone data plan terms. AT&T could slap you with huge fees if you overuse this."

The point is that AT&T is one of the few providers to offer an unlimited data plan that's anything like affordable. The company is also sensible enough to separate voice and data plans so customers aren't forced to overbuy one to get what they want for the other.

But most of the other iPhone carriers around the world limit the amount of data available on the various plans, and charge for excess use at rates that some people regard as gouging.

Most phone data traffic is highly asymmetric - generally speaking, very little data is sent upstream. But that's often not the case when you connect a computer to the Internet via wireless - you might send emails with large attachments, upload sizeable files such as hi-res photos or video clips to web sites and ftp servers, or even forget that you have a P2P client running.

Sure, you'll pay for the data, but the the carrier's backhaul network is probably configured to carry certain levels of data, and having large numbers of notionally phone users could upset their calculations.

Well, maybe. But if that really was the issue, why is it so much cheaper per gigabyte to connect a computer to a 3G via a dongle than via a phone, or when the data is consumed directly on the handset? Anyway, the point is that this is probably not something you'd want to do frequently.

We suggest you check the fine print of your contract before trying to tether your iPhone to ensure that you're on safe ground. And if something goes wrong contractually or technically, don't blame us - you were the one that decided to jailbreak your iPhone in the first place!