AT&T Tethering Disabled in Latest iPhone Beta

Leander Kahney ()

tethering

Apple has disabled AT&T tethering in the latest iPhone beta released to developers on Tuesday.

The iPhone OS 3.1 beta 2 disables a popular tethering hack for the AT&T network. The hack works on iPhone 3.0, even though AT&T does yet officially support it.

The hack enables data tethering (and sometimes MMS)  by altering the iPhone’s IPCC carrier files. It’s easily enabled by visiting sites like BenM.at using mobile Safari on the iPhone.

AT&T has promised tethering later this year, but has yet to release details. The company is expected to be enabled in late summer and cost about $15 extra.

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About the author

Leander Kahney

is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac, and author of three books about technology culture: Inside Steve’s Brain, the New York Times bestseller about Steve Jobs; Cult of Mac; and Cult of iPod. Leander has written for Wired, MacWeek, Scientific American, and The Guardian in London. Follow Leander on Twitter @lkahney and Facebook.

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Posted in Apple, iPhone, News |

  • Eric

    Of course. :(

  • Greg

    i tried it it dosen’t come back hopefully someone will fix this

  • ged

    why all the fuss from at&t about this?

    It is just data, are they trying to get every dollar they can from you iphone junkies?

    cheesey?

  • MacRat

    And yet I can continue to tether with my 5 year old Sony Ericsson P910 on my 8 year old T-Mobile $19.99/mo unlimited data plan.

  • Alan SMith

    I like my iPhone, but may switch to something else if AT&T does not offer tethering free or at a reasonable price. Apple needs to drop AT&T like it did with the PowerPC (IBM & Motorola).

  • SkyGuy79

    …I’ve checked and the tethering data does show up in my history as wap.cingular so AT&T could get me if they wanted to. Also, there is a bug in this which shows the iPhone as fully charged and therefore will not charge the device even though it is depleting the battery. I think i’ll just wait for the supported tethering.

  • Arlen Cuss

    It’s worth noting that it’s not only AT&T, but also other providers. I lost my tethering support here in Australia, too.

  • Art Pineda

    That’s pathetic. i’m just not going to upgrade to 3.1. I prefer staying w/ Tethering over visual voicemail for Free instead.

    :)

  • Tethering Cheater

    This is scary. I went to http://help.benm.at/help.php and just followed the directions. I clicked on the AT&T logo to install the config settings, clicked install and when the pass code screen popped up I entered the passcode I had created for my iPhone. I again followed directions to enable tethering on my iPone = Settings > General > Network > Internet Tethering > On. In less than two minutes I was done. I plugged my iPhone into my PC with the USB connecting cable and my PC immediately recognized the iPhone and connected to the Internet through the iPhone.

    !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OK does anyone really know if AT&T is going to send me a bill now for a zillion $$ for using a little tethering? !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    I don’t plan to down load movies or massive files but sometimes use my laptop instead of the micro screen on the iPhone. If/when they allow tethering I’ll give them the $30 or so they plan to charge per month for the “extra” feature of tethering, but until then I want to use what I just enabled.