It is a sad reminder that they would hold off tethering capabilities in the US for no other reason than a justification of charging more than other carriers for the same product.
GREEDY BASTARDS!!!!!!!

Your web site full professional…

Apple was in exclusive talks with 1 carrier before iphone 3g launch but was forced to consider other carriers after the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC)gov body responsible for company policing informed them it is illegal under anticompetitive laws to force consumers to only one carrier although carriers are aloud to lock the phones to their networks they must allow customers to be able to unlock the phones at a cost or 6months from activation at no cost

Use your power to convince your gov to make them let you choose your carrier its wrong!

Go to Verizon, cheaper, and proven better!

Does anyone remember that US Govt had to break up ATT once already!

I suspect that the flags go up when there are excessive data usage.

AT&T is “unlimited” data in the states, but that’s tempered by the fact that you’re not using your iphone to download data 24 hours a day. It’s just like your POTS telephone in the old days – in theory it was unlimited, make as many calls as you wanted, but realistically maybe you made a few phone calls a day, so you weren’t on it 24 hours a day. (When dial-up internet came along and people really WERE on it 24 hours a day, they had major problems if anyone remembers that long ago.)

SO … AT&T knows you’re not really using your iPhone for data all that much. If you check your usage, you’re probably not any greater than 1 Gig/month for the average person. But let’s say someone turns on tethering, and ditches their home DSL line.. just hooks up their computer to their cell phone. So now you really are using the cell network constantly for data access. And then everyone does that. Why pay for a home DSL line at all if you’re a single person? Just keep it attached to your cell phone, it’s “unlimited”, right? Well, then we have the same issue as the dial-up days.

AT&T’s in a bind. If they go back and say “no, it’s not really unlimited”, they’re in violation of the agreement they sold you. They can’t really separate out tethering traffic from regular iphone traffic, it looks the same to the data network (unless Apple agrees to a software upgrade that does distinguish the two.) So they shut it off until their lawyers and their engineers can figure out what the hell to do. It sucks, but this is what’s going on behind the scenes, I guarantee you.

At+t I assure you that you will lose MOST IF NOT ALL Apple-Iphone customers.

If Apple knew what was good for it as far as customer service goes and reputation they’d get some balls and revise the contract with AT&T to bind them to increasing the network on an expedited timetable and immediate availability for customers to use the iPhone with the full functionality it’s capable of.

I’m on Verizon. I’ve got a 20% discount via my alma mater and customer service is fabulous. The iPhone is calling my name but as long as AT&T doesn’t offer tethering, there’s no financial incentive for me to pay for a more expensive basic contract with AT&Crap ($8 more/month) and the data plan. That’s a whopping $912 more than what I currently pay for a 2 year contract! I need it to cover my internet at home it make it worth it. I’d rather get a new MacBook every 2 years for that type of savings.