MacDailyNews Note: We currently pay $60 per month per MacBook Pro for tethering, but we pay those fees to Verizon because we need reliable connections. However, if AT&T offered iPhone tethering as they promised so long ago that they would, we’d risk it to save $60 per MacBook Pro minus whatever AT&T plans to charge for tethering per month.
iPhone users around the world enjoy tethering on their iPhones, but not those in the U.S., despite AT&T’s June 18, 2009 promise that “in the future, AT&T will offer tethering capability for iPhone 3G S and iPhone 3G.” In fact, AT&T has been dangling the promise of iPhone tethering for even longer. On November 6, 2008, yes, 2008, AT&T Mobility President Ralph De La Vega told an audience at the Web 2.0 Summit that tethering to iPhone was coming “soon.” At the time, Computerworld’s Matt Hamblen reported that de la Vega was also “whipping up excitement for tethering…” via blogging, as noted by Technologizer’s Harry McCracken.
MacDailyNews Take: The nebulous “soon” and “in the future” have a reasonable shelf-life, AT&T. You passed it long ago. You can’t promise something to users, something that may have enticed sales of iPhone 3G and 3GS to a significant amount of buyers, and then not deliver in a reasonable amount of time. Well, you can, but don’t be surprised when they get pissed off, start complaining, and perhaps begin exploring the possibility of launching class action lawsuits.
In related news today, Gizmodo’s Kyle VanHemert reports that Swedish DJ Jezper Söderlund just recently emailed Apple CEO Steve Jobs to ask, “Will the wifi-only [iPad] somehow support tethering thru my iPhone?” Jobs’ reply: “No.”
On February 4, BusinessWeek’s Roben Farzad reported that AT&T still “plans to offer iPhone tethering,” but not right now, quoting AT&T Operations President John Stankey as saying, “You don’t want to throw more gasoline on the fire.” That’s seemingly a reference to AT&T’s ongoing difficulties in delivering reliable bandwidth to iPhone customers who AT&T nevertheless has no qualms about continuing to charge quite healthy usage fees.
MacDailyNews Take: Well, John, at this point our patience is so far gone that we have absolutely no problem throwing more gasoline on our little fire.
The bottom line: AT&T has failed to deliver the tethering to iPhone users as promised within a reasonable amount of time.
Please contact the following artisans of bovine excrement and ask them how long we iPhone users have to wait for the tethering capability that their company began promising in in November 2008:
• Randall L. Stephenson, AT&T Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President:
• Ralph de la Vega, President and Chief Executive Officer, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets:
• John T. Stankey, President and Chief Executive Officer, AT&T Operations:
Sample email:
Hello,
You’ve been publicly promising iPhone tethering would be coming “soon” since November 2008.
When do you plan on fulfilling your long-ago-broken promise, if ever?
Thank you,
Can a class action lawsuit be base on a promise?
Everyone who currently enjoys tethering on AT&T and are using something other than an iPhone, would consider buying one and drop their current 60-dollar plan.
What’re we talking here, a billion in lost revenue?
I see Rogers in Canada got something right. My heart goes out to my neighbours to my south!
AT&T has broken many promises over the years. It’s time they were held accountable.
If it were up to me, Ed Whitacre would be sharing a prison cell with the WorldCom guys, instead of running General Motors.
Some of the most prolific class-action law suits were founded on failure to deliver what was promised.
The fact that AT&T has publicly stated they would offer tethering two-years ago and have failed to deliver is just incredibly stupid on their part.
There is just no excuse, unless of course they made several billion dollars in the last couple of years by not implementing tethering to the iPhone customer, in which case, they can afford the risky litigation.
But, in the meantime they will have damaged the brand.
@Mac4lfe:
Yes, you can sue — and win — on based upon an obviously unfulfilled promise.
AT&T;has been promising tethering for almost two years. They have never offered it, but still continue to say that it is coming. I’m certain there are people who bought iPhones partly based upon being able to use an iPhone to tether their laptop. Why am I certain? Because I’m one.
The iPhone screen is good, but sometimes you need more screen real estate for certain tasks — and are no where near a WiFi hotspot.
In general I’m against lawsuits — and vehemently against class action lawsuits. Virtually all the time the only persons who make out in those cases are the lawyers themselves. Clients get pennies and lawyers get rich (with 25 to 40% of the multi million dollar award going to the lawyers [plus recouping all their costs in addition to the fees] and the rest getting divided among the full class typically ending up with at most tens of dollars per member of the class).
However, in this case there must be some way to force AT&T;to stop putting this off. Maybe a class action lawsuit is the only way.
I’m in.
Am I going to be forced to jail break my iPhone to tether an iPad, after 2 1/2 years of not going there, just to tether another device to my mobile data plan? Let me pay a reasonable tethering fee, or collect nothing but resentment and disloyalty. I feel it is conspiratorial greed to force a second data plan on the user who is only using 1 device (to consume data) at a time.
MDN needs to add a poll of those iPhone users who’d support a class action lawsuit – I know I would support such a move, despite being against the litigious nature of the US.
I’m in too!
OK, we all know that AT&T;is what they are – as so often cleverly characterized by MDN.
What I don’t understand is why Steve Jobs keeps getting a pass on the fiasco of lone partnership with this lousy phone company. My iPhones are of use to me only part of the time. The rest of the time, they are useless unless I want to play some stupid game.
In the category of “can do no wrong” there is no member of higher standing that this guy. And, it is total bovine excrement.
I’ll give u a hint; they can’t figure out how to implement it
Try a class action suit where there are three parties separately suing, each with their own law firm. Each law firm has an agreement of 30% of the settlement. They join together, win and the clients get 10%.
Simple math, 10% of a Million is 100,000. divided by 10 is 10,000. Now factor in hundreds of people, the lawyers get rich no matter what, the clients get a gift certificate at the Apple store for up to a $30.00 purchase.
Tethering will come. It is technologically inevitable.
The problem is that allowing tethering to a paradigm-busting development such as the iPhone (or iPad) in the US, is that it will require the evolution of new pricing and supply models. It will come, but there will be mistakes, resentment, and howls before the economics and practicalities settle down.
This is a pricing and service problem that will change the entire industry and AT&T;is terrified of making customer-enraging mistakes, the impact on their operations as a carrier, and the economic consequences of this inevitable change. That said…it is time for AT&T;to start the process. If they handle it well, it could be a huge benefit. But it could also be a financial and public relations disaster.
This is what I sent to them. Few people appear to be giving Apple sufficient credit for fostering fundamental change in the mobile device industry. But the iPhone paved the way for a unified, simplified wireless strategy with reduced bundled voice/data costs. Everyone else is frantically feeding on the effort and risks taken by Apple over the last few years.
Dear Sirs:
In your positions of leadership within a major corporation, you are obligated to fulfill the promises made on behalf of that entity. The iPhone tethering issue should have been resolved long ago. Please make it a personal priority.
I am not a person who believes in “something for nothing.” But I am also a firm supported of simplicity and transparency. We have reached a point in the evolution of mobile wireless technology in which voice/data access should seamlessly support a range of electronic devices owned by a person or family. Extrapolating that thought even further, the company that intelligently packages general data access (wired and wireless) in a simple and cost-effective manner – voice, data, television, etc. – stands to gain a great deal of marketshare and long term customer loyalty.
With the iPhone and, soon, the iPad, Apple is charting the course of mobile electronics for the next decade. Your company has benefited financially from partnering with Apple on the iPhone rollout, showing that it is possible to be both customer-friendly and profitable. This is not the time to begin retreating from the progress forged during the early years of this partnership.
I’m generally against class action lawsuits as well, but i’d support this one – another avenue to slam AT&T;(that they actually monitor closely) is their Facebook fan page – they like to keep it “positive” so any comments that call them out get a pretty quick reply trying to spin it back into AT&T;’s favor.
Last time I was there I made a public bet with them that they wouldn’t offer iPhone tethering before the 3G iPad was releases – And then – they’ll blame the increased network traffic from the iPad for further justification for NOT allowing tethering!
Go cross post early & often.
I love the MacDailyNews outlook. Imagine just saying things like they are would be so popular. Keep up the good work.
I don’t get it. Is MDN for AT&T;or for Verizon. Truthfully i think its good that they admitted it would be throwing gasoline on the fire. At least they are acknowledging the problem, but in true American form, we demand transparency. Let them fix the damn problem. I don’t remember everyone holding Apple’s feet to the fire when push messaging was late to the game by a whole year. and watch out AT&T;’s deployment of LTE is gonna be much faster than Verizon. They aren’t going to make the same mistake twice.
It would have been nice to tether with my iPhone in a pinch but “NO”
my hope for the iPad is fading. I really want it to stream my iTunes library same as appletv does.
Apples decisions on their closed systems are starting to lose me. I will be looking hard at netbooks and the competitors tablets. I love apple but they are just pissing me off alot lately.
Class action lawsuits only benefit scum lawyers.
AT&T;is working to improve their network. They are spending billions on infrastructure. They have to lease cell tower space at “rip off” rates from landowners.
Like I’ve said before, if you have a better approach start your own wireless company and provide unlimited bandwidth, at 1 Gbps, on every inch of the globe, for $1 per month. Otherwise, STFU.
Alright, I get that you people are all pissed that tethering isn’t available yet. But guess what? Neither Apple nor AT&T;have ever officially announced this functionality was coming in the U.S. It has never been advertised as a future feature (like MMS was). You’re basing your arguments on interviews with executives where they basically say “Yes, someday that will come…” which is the equivalent of “stay tuned.” They never promised anything more than that. There is no legal grounds for a lawsuit.
So we should sue Verizon for promising the iPhone on their network, so many times? And in their case there could be actual fraud involved, because it encouraged their customers to renew their contracts, locking them in for services never rendered?
@Mac4lfe
ANY lawsuit in the USA can be filed for ANY reason. Or, even, no reason at all.
I thought that tethering hack still worked? No jailbreak required.
I will be leaving AT&T;in favor of Verizon as soon as Verizon offers an iPhone. I’m so fed up with AT&T;’s inability to handle iPhone service. They just can’t handle it.
MDN likes Verizon for its internet cause:
1. they like red
2. they like a slower network
Apple is stuck with AT&T;because Verizon is not able to do voice and data at the same time. And Sprint and T-Mobile would just be crushed under the weight of having the iPhone……
Also……I think it is really STUPID that AT&T;and Apple will not allow the iPad to be tethered to an iPhone. Why should I have to pay AT&T;twice for using their network?
I mean, I’m not going to be using my iPad and my iPhone for internet AT THE SAME TIME.
Simple solution would be that if the iPhone is in tethering mode, that the only data it gets are push notifications. Heck, Apple could even make themselves cooler by having those notifications PUSHED to the iPad regardless if you have that App installed. Like a little push notification box shows up and says “A Push Notification from the iPhone” or something.
Anyhow……..but AT&T;and Apple suck for making us pay TWICE for using AT&T;. Steve Jobs, you fail.