Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
Optus has revealed that its iPhone customers will have to pay extra to enable the new tethering feature. That's purely an access fee that's levied on top of the data charges.
One of the long-awaited features of the iPhone 3.0 software is tethering, or the ability to use the handset as a modem for (eg) a notebook computer.
This capability can be particularly useful for someone who mainly uses wireless broadband on their phone and only occasionally needs to connect a computer that way.
According to Optus, the 'iPhone as Modem' feature will be available to post-paid customers from June 22 for $A9.99 per month.
Activating this 'feature' merely enables tethering - the data comes out of the allowance included in the customer's plan or topped up separately.
So Optus is really asking its customers to pay ten bucks a month for nothing, since the tethering capability is built into the iPhone.
The only reason carriers have any say in the matter may be to allow those that offer an unlimited data plan (notably AT&T in the US) to disable tethering, as such plans are priced according to the likely data usage on the handset. Performance issues aside, if you could use your phone as a modem, why pay separately for fixed broadband?
But where data is charged by volume, there's no good excuse for charging extra for tethering, especially if it's allowed with other handsets without a fixed charge.
We have no first-hand knowledge of whether the technique really works (and if it does, how long it will take the phone companies to find a workaround), but you'll find instructions over at Whirlpool for unofficially enabling iPhone tethering on Optus.
You may find it easier to jump to the end of the thread and work back, but whatever you do is at your own risk and responsibility.
David Bass
| For the fourth year in a row, IDC has placed content security provider Websense (NASDAQ: WBSN) at the top of the IDC Worldwide Web Security 2011 –…
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