Filed under: OS, Software, Hacks, Internet, Internet Tools, iPhone
Tether your iPhone to get online with EDGE
Who cares whether Apple or AT&T might shut down your account or slam you with an exorbitant data bill - cre.ations.net figured out how to tether your iPhone to get web access with... well, EDGE. It may not be Wi-Fi or even EVDO, but EDGE should be able to save the day in a pinch, but none of us make any guarantees as to how long AT&T will permit this or what this hack could do to your bill. Proceed at your own risk.
That said, the cre.ations.net hack isn't exactly for the faint of heart either. You'll have to run some utilities, tinker with the command line and stand on your head to get this all set up properly, but once it is, the trick apparently works pretty well. Also, it appears the author wrote this so users across Mac OS X, Windows XP and Vista can play along, so you can take liberties with that work notebook and get hacking.
Of course, I would chalk this feature up as yet another that would be great if Apple made far easier by building into the iPhone's software. Many, if not most, smartphones (and even regular phones) can be used for tethered web access, and a software update down the road would make a lot of mobile users happy.
[via MacRumors]
Thanks Will and Kender
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
schlomo said 11:58AM on 7-25-2007
AT&T, in theory, can't do anything with your bill. You pay for UNLIMITED DATA and it's all being routed to the iPhone through its SIM and IMEI data - they have no way to tell if it's going to a computer or not.
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Jeremy said 1:26PM on 7-25-2007
I did this on my SLVR for awhile, didn't wanna have a DSL contract when i was living someplace for just a few months. Speed is adequate for light browsing, emails...however...the $280+ data charge was a little intense for one month. AT&T won't cancel you, they'll just charge you a penny a kilobyte...proceed with caution...and if you do have the tethering plan, it doesn't cover any easyedge stuff (ie: java gmail app).
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PSM said 12:19PM on 7-25-2007
I'm not sure about GSM, but I know Verizon and Sprint can both tell the difference between tethering and on-phone usage, and have an additional plan for people who want to tether.
It's something built into the phone's software that signals which is which. Of course there are hacks to disable this for certain phones, but if you just suddenly decided to tether without installing the hack they could start charging you, even though it's "unlimited" internet.
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Mattazuma said 12:27PM on 7-25-2007
You are right, most smartphones are capable of doing tethered access. However practically all cell carriers lock this feature out so you can't use it.
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Klink said 12:34PM on 7-25-2007
@ #1:
True, IN THEORY.
Not much you can do when they close your account, leaving you with an iBrick. WHat are you going to do? Sue them? THey could downplay anything. Luckily, #2 I think is right. Although how computers use the internet these days may tip off AT&T with some weird usage statistics.
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PSM said 12:54PM on 7-25-2007
As far as the legality of it, it all depends on whether your contract says something about prohibited usage and whether that includes tethering. Many people do it and get away with it, but if they catch you they would be in the right to terminate your contract or charge your per KB or whatever their policy is.
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drakino said 1:19PM on 7-25-2007
For anyone trying this, the script files and .sh files are all in dos line ending format, and will need to be converted to unix format to run. If you don't convert, you will get this error:
./tetherify-osx-intel.sh
: bad interpreter: No such file or directory
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schlomo said 6:53PM on 7-25-2007
my point was, AFAIK (as I have not actually done this), the iPhone is NOT telling AT&T anything about where the data is going - as far as AT&T knows it's just the iPhone browsing the net. besides, with the "full internet in your hand", I'm already hitting 300MB+ in bandwidth this month, with others getting much higher!!!
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Elliott Pogue said 9:41AM on 7-26-2007
Because this hack is using a SOCKS proxy, I'm fairly certain AT&T can't tell the different. It's just you asking the iPhone to fetch the information and the information being transmitted back to the SOCKS proxy (on the iPhone) then back to your computer.
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Bo said 1:14PM on 9-22-2007
Well when I did this to my phone, my laptop could do things my phone wouldnt. On my phone I could not download files, fully load certain sites, etc. But, my laptop would go to those places and download! AT&T could tell the difference. I updated my version so it wiped out that socks. But if somebody would try to vpn on their phone, then tether their laptop. AT&T wouldnt tell the difference because vpn traffic is encrypted. Just on the laptop go to speedtest.net and make sure the ip address is for the one your vpn into! I Bet AT&T would be completely hidden from tethering.
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