"Tethering" is a word that doesn't fare well being repeated over and over.

April 7, 2010 7:28 AM

What is the best current option for tethering a cell phone to a computer?

This is confusing. A lot of places charge for tethering, which is sub-optimal. I don't want to jail break the phone. Is there an easy and within-TOS way to tether that doesn't cost an 60 dollars a month for the privelage?

posted by codacorolla to Computers & Internet (15 answers total)

Depends on the phone and the company. If your on-phone web browser has a straight IP connection, then I don't think they can tell. But if you don't have any kind of data plan, they might just charge you per usage. But if the browser is one of those hybrid deals, where the session is on their server somewhere and the connection to your phone is strictly on the cell network, it might not work at all.

I got a Blackberry and opted to pay the price, for the convenience. If I was going to do it now, I'd sign up with Clear and get a separate doodad for computer usage.
posted by gjc at 8:03 AM on April 7, 2010

Nokia phones have a very simple software package and use a mini to usb cable. I do it all the time with my 6650 when comcast craps out at home. It uses our normal (unlimited) data package.
posted by Big_B at 8:24 AM on April 7, 2010

I'm with AT&T btw.
posted by Big_B at 8:24 AM on April 7, 2010

My iphone tethers very easily with the already included USB cable and the simple touch of a button on the phone. Not sure where you are, but Rogers here in Canada now includes tethering in their data packages. It was temporarily free until May, and now they've announced that it will be officially included at no extra charge with data packages.
posted by aclevername at 9:01 AM on April 7, 2010

Since you state "dollars" I will assume you are a USAian. Verizon carries the Palm Pre + which has a built-in mobile hotspot app which turns the phone into (surprise!) a mobile hotspot supporting up to 5 wi-fi enabled devices connecting to their 3G network. I am not on Verizon (I have the Pre on Sprint, which does not have the mobile hotspot) but it looks like their pricing is $30/month for the unlimited data plan, which is required for their smartphones. That is in addition to whatever voice plan you need, starting at $40/month for 450 minutes. Looking again it seems like they are also charging and additional $20 if you want texting on your account. So your total on the 450 minute plan would be $90/month. That seems like an incredible ripoff if you are already paying for data. At least it does for me coming from Sprint where $70 total gets me the equivalent (and $99 would get me unlimited EVERYTHING). You don't say what your current voice/data needs are, or what other features you actually want on the phone, so this may or may not be in line with what you are looking for.
posted by JJtheJetPlane at 9:08 AM on April 7, 2010

It's impossible to answer this questions without knowing what phone and service you use.
posted by The Lamplighter at 9:13 AM on April 7, 2010

codacorolla - It sounds to me like you don't have a particular cellphone in mind, and would be open the the idea of getting whatever phone and service make this process easiest. Is that a correct interpretation of your question?
posted by Vorteks at 10:20 AM on April 7, 2010

For the love of all that's holy, be sure you have an unlimited data plan. If you tether your cell phone to your computer, you will be transmitting and receiving a lot of data - megs and megs and megs. Potentially gigs, if you're watching stuff on Hulu or something.

However, most carriers charge for data by the K. You could easily end up facing a cell phone bill for thousands of dollars. Trust me - I've seen it happen.

This is why the carrier's "charging you $60 for the privilege." It's because if you don't get the tethering/unlimited data plan, you'll be getting charged .02 per K or whatever.
posted by ErikaB at 12:02 PM on April 7, 2010

Response by poster: Vorteks: yes. I'm without the phone or the plan right now and would like to go with whatever's cheapest. Voice and text are secondary to the data plan and the ability to tether, but the cheaper the better.
posted by codacorolla at 12:56 PM on April 7, 2010

Piggybackin': Is it possible to tether an iPad to a Droid Eris? I'm thinking about getting an iPad, and I'd like to have internet access without tacking on another data plan.
posted by solipsophistocracy at 6:02 PM on April 7, 2010

I'm not an expert at such things, but if you buy an Android phone at full price, and then get the Even More Plus 500 Talk/Text/Web plan from T-Mobile, you can then tether your Android phone to your laptop pretty easily with PDANet (costs $30 for full version), and use the web unlimited for $30 per month.

This is what I did, and it's worked well for me so far. I'm not sure if T-Mobile would cut you off if your data use is excessive, but anecdotally it sounds like most people are having a lot of success with this method.

I don't know about other phones/carriers. Sorry.
posted by Vorteks at 7:03 AM on April 8, 2010

Oh, and Sprint's new phones, including the yet-unavailable HTC Evo, will have the ability to share their internet access by functioning as a mobile wifi hotspot. From the link above:

Evo’s mobile hotspot functionality will allow up to eight Wi-Fi-enabled devices to share the network. The phone will also support Adobe Flash and will have a “custom” web browser, says Sprint.

Assuming this would work the same way as Sprint's overdrive device, the internet access would be unlimited in Sprint's (currently small) 4G coverage area, and capped at 5GB in the areas covered by their 3G network. Perhaps not a very viable option right now, but definitely something that could be quite interesting in the near future.
posted by Vorteks at 7:14 AM on April 8, 2010

Response by poster: I had looked at MiFi... but a $500 overage? Wow. I like the looks of PDANet, but I'm worried about it being patched out of existence at some point. Is that not a concern because it's based off of your laptop? If anyone is still looking at this question I'll give it another few days before I mark as resolved.
posted by codacorolla at 3:36 PM on April 8, 2010

Best answer: codacorolla - Well, I suppose it's possible that just about anything would be patched out of existance. But I think the chances of that happening to PDANet are pretty low.

For one thing, it's a normal app that doesn't require rooting or special privileges, it uses the normal APIs that all other apps use. So to patch the phone so that it wouldn't work anymore would mean changing the app APIs in a way that would affect many apps, not just PDANet. This kind of change would not be taken lightly by the user or development communities for a phone.

Secondly, if you're thinking of PDANet on Android, Android itself is an open source OS, and doesn't belong to any particular carrier or manufacturer. It does belong to Google, and Google is pretty committed to the idea of open data and open access (to the point where they go to the other extreme and create privacy concerns, but I digress).
posted by Vorteks at 6:44 AM on April 9, 2010

Response by poster: Thanks for the help everyone. This has definitely helped!
posted by codacorolla at 7:06 AM on April 9, 2010