iPhone 3GS - tethering

The_Abyss · 21 Jul 2009 at 13:32

Has the ridiculous £15 a month tethering charge been worked around yet on the new 3GS?

With the Hero delayed, and possibly underpowered, I'm revisiting the new iPhone but simply will not buy until this insane charge is either removed or worked around.

Thanks,

philjohn · 21 Jul 2009 at 13:43

The_Abyss said:
Has the ridiculous £15 a month tethering charge been worked around yet on the new 3GS?

With the Hero delayed, and possibly underpowered, I'm revisiting the new iPhone but simply will not buy until this insane charge is either removed or worked around.

Thanks,

yes, but when O2 catch you they reserve the right to charge you usage fees (and don't think it'll be the £15 a month either, they'll charge you per MB). How will they catch you? I read somewhere the settings file floating around the web uses a different APN than idata (the iphone one). They'll also look at how much data you're using, more = investigate as possible tethering. Finally they could possibly use DPI and look at things like HTTP User agent, other services you are using that aren't available on the iPhone etc. etc.

I wouldn't risk it, just get yourself a prepay 3 dongle (and of course make a complaint to OfCom about O2's ridiculous profiteering, if they get enough complaints they can look into it and possibly refer them to the OFT for enforcement/action). Add to this O2's 3G network is officially pants and I don't really see the point.

Spacedman · 21 Jul 2009 at 13:43

This is the only issue i have with the iphone, i've been able to do this with my previous mobiles. If it was dropped/workaround id buy it today

MacRS4 · 21 Jul 2009 at 21:22

Try this:

http://www.markc.me.uk/MarkC/Blog/Entries/2009/6/23_O2_Apple_iPhone_Tethering.html

Worked on my old 3g and worked on my 3gs. Haven't had a peep out of O2 either.

On my own website the only difference I can see when using tethering is the ID of the web browser - I mean the source address doesn't change whether via tethering or via the iPhone itself.

darkgen · 21 Jul 2009 at 21:42

Aye been following this. o2 have stated via numerous articles that provisioning yourself "tethering" without bending over for them is a breach of their T&C's and blah blah blah.

Basically I have no idea how they would identify anyone using this aside from potentially the dramatic increase of data used (which would be surprise considering o2's 3g network does not seem capable of supplying anything remotely "speedy").

Hey ho, cheers Paul.