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iPhone 3.0 tethering comes at a price from O2

Tethering available immediately with pricey bolt-on data packages

iPhone 3.0 tethering comes at a price from O2
With the iPhone's 3.0 operating system now spreading across the world, users are keen to start testing out all those hot new features - including internet tethering for PCs and laptops.

This is a feature that US iPhone carrier AT&T has come under fire about, since the function won't be made available to American iPhone users for quite some time (along with MMS).

In the UK, O2 is apparently better prepared, with both MMS and tethering available from the outset. What's slipped under the radar, however, is that O2 won't be including internet tethering as part of the iPhone's 'unlimited' data package.

Instead, when setting up the function, iPhone users are being directed to sign up for expensive bolt-on data packages. £14.68 will buy you 3GB a month, while 10GB will cost £29.36, and come complete with a dreaded 'excessive usage' policy attached.

Given that it's quite difficult to use excessive amounts of data with the iPhone alone, a fairer system would seem to be simply place a data allowance on all iPhone contracts, and leave it up to the user to decide how they'll use the data.




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