A developer has found that the iPhone 3.0 beta released to ADC developers earlier this week has tethering built in. Clearly Apple would like to unlock it but there is undoubtedly some carrier agreements that will need to be worked out.
Obviously this feature would require a monthly fee paid to the carrier but I’m not sure how it would be unlocked. For example, if my iPhone has some trouble and needs a full restore, how would I go about reactivating tethering on my phone? Would I have to call AT&T and have them reactivate it or would it just automatically get unlocked?
These are questions that probably won’t be answered until Apple or AT&T makes an announcement regarding it, but they’re things that we should be thinking about.
There is a general consensus amongst many journalists that cover Apple products that tethering will cost another $30 or so. I sure hope not, I would love to use tethering but $30 is simply too expensive, it is much cheaper than buying a 3G card for your laptop but it is still too expensive.
Tethering currently works over USB and Bluetooth, there isn’t an option to make it work over Wifi. Going over Wifi would be ideal because you wouldn’t have to have your iPhone physically tethered to your notebook and you would (in theory) be able to get much faster speeds than you do with Bluetooth.
More iPhone 3.0 features: Tethering and Find my iPhone | 9 to 5 Mac.