Sam Oliver
According to an anonymous source said to be "close" to Redmond Pie, all iPhones that support iOS 4 will gain the Personal Hotspot in March, with the release of iOS 4.3. The feature was first demonstrated on Tuesday with the newly unveiled CDMA iPhone 4.
The new CDMA iPhone for Verizon's network in the U.S. was shown running a new version of Apple's mobile operating system, iOS 4.2.5. It can be enabled through the phone's Settings application, and allows the handset's 3G data connection to be shared with up to five devices over Wi-Fi.
Adding credibility to the rumored March release of iOS 4.3, the tipster also provided screenshots of the feature running on a handset, though the name of the cell provider has been blocked out.
Boy Genius Report also received screenshots, and was told that the new OS version is labeled 8F5148b, with a baseband of 04.08.00. It also heard that "technical acceptance" is expected to take place in March.
Word of an iOS 4.3 release with the Personal Hotspot feature came to light after the Verizon announcement on Tuesday. There it was also said that the feature would only be available if a wireless carrier agreed to support it.
For its part, AT&T said it wouldn't "speculate on potential features that could be added to its phones in the future. The carrier agreed to allow iPhone tethering last June, but currently AT&T customers must pay $20 per month to share a 3G connection only via USB or Bluetooth. The current method does not allow a data connection to be shared with an iPad.
UpdateAn AT&T rep reportedly told SAI that the company was "evaluating" supporting the feature, but that AT&T has "no plans to announce today."
Though Verizon announced the iPhone and Personal Hotspot on Tuesday, the carrier did not offer any pricing for the handset's data plans or for the ability to tether. The CDMA iPhone will debut on Verizon's network when it goes on sale in the U.S. on Feb. 10.
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44 Comments
Very curious to see how AT&T responds to this sort of thing. Given their new tiered data plans, they really ought to be able to do this with no trouble. They might just want to restrict it to people who do have one of the tiered plans -- making this available to those with unlimited plans might be more than their poor little network can handle.
That would be cool - I wonder at what price? Allowing iPad is a must! Although it calls into question the future sales of iPads with 3G etc. Even one connection would make me happy, two would be great. No need for 5 IMHO. A Free 'personal hot spot'.
Looking forward to this on my carrier. Bluetooth tethering is a bit cumbersome when pairing non-Mac devices, even then new devices take a while to pair and it's not shareable. This is good stuff.
Very curious to see how AT&T responds to this sort of thing. Given their new tiered data plans, they really ought to be able to do this with no trouble. They might just want to restrict it to people who do have one of the tiered plans -- making this available to those with unlimited plans might be more than their poor little network can handle.
It’s their right as we do sign a contract stating we won’t tether, but I think it’s silly they want to charge $20 for tethering without giving you any additional data.
I think if they offered it for free on capped plans it would be easy to use and could very easily push people into additional charges from increasing from 200MB to 2GB plans and paying $10 for each additional 1GB. I think that would easily exceed what they are getting from people with capped plans paying for tethering.
I think wi-fi sharing would become the most used way of sharing.
Would be nice to know what encryption level is being used though.