“According to our source, the personal hotspot feature that debuted on the Verizon iPhone yesterday will, in fact, be making its way to all iPhones in iOS 4.3,” Jonathan S. Geller reports for BGR.
“We’re sure there will need to be carrier support for this feature, and for AT&T users it is entirely possible we might not see this right away,” Geller reports. “For those of you with more lenient carriers, however, we are sure you will be pleased to learn that you’ll be able to connect up to five devices over Wi-Fi to the iPhone’s cellular data connection.”
Full article, with more info and screenshot, here.
MacDailyNews Take: Buck up AT&T iPhoners, it only took AT&T nineteen months to deliver tethering to iPhone (promised in November 2008, delivered in June 2010, so you likely have loads of oh-so-sweet anticipation coming your way!
So Verizon customers will have their 5 dvices kicked off the network when a phone call comes in?
But I suppose they’ll at least have the feature, which is more than ATT customers will have.
The pissing match begins- expect ATT to counter every Verizon offering with it’s own lures to stop the possible migration… ATT shoulda made goos on their promise of tethering.
You can’t have network price wars without at least two combatants. Let the competition begin!
I’m confused. Is “Personal Hotspot” just a rebranding of the long awaited “Tethering” feature?
So no extra charge to do this on Verizon network?
@Guy
Tethering only allows one item to be connected to your phone to use data. A hotspot feature allows up to five.
When Verizon’s network crash soon after iP launch, then we can talk about how bad AT&T’s network is.
I don’t see why AT&T would wait for this feature. They’ve already allowed tethering, and already gotten rid of unlimited data plans. If it seems like they’d want to enable this sooner to get people to use more data (and thereby pay more, either via more expensive and or overage charges).
But then again, AT&T does some weird things, so who knows.
@Guy – Personal Hotspot allows you to have up to 5 separate devices connected to your iPhone via bluetooth or WiFi
hope that helps… it’s like MiFi… well,actually it is exactly like MIFi.
@ Jubei
Uh, no. Currently verizon offers hotspot features on some if it’s smartphones for $20/month with a 2GB cap/month
here in canada, i can already use my iphone 4 as a hotspot (bell carrier) and it works perfectly…
@Jubei
I remember reading somewhere that it will be $20/month or something like that.
I have it for “free” on AT&T (one time fee of $20), the only reason that I seriously considered Jailbreaking. No probs so far, unlimited data on an iPhone with MyWi is a wonderful thing.
I wish AT&T would be competitive in this, but I don’t have high hopes…we will probably have to wait like we did for tethering. If AT&T want to keep my business now, they will have to compete.
Can’t WAIT to FaceTime a hotspot…
If Verizon does it, AT&T will have to match it. As a AT&T iPhone customer, this is going to be really good.
COMPETITION!
Sorry MDN stupid is as stupid does. I’ve been using MyWi 4.0 from cydia for months. I’ve got wifi hot spots out the yin-yang! One time charge $19.95. No monthly fee. So if you don’t JB you can take what THEY give you, or you JB
and take control.
My3G let’s you FaceTime anywhere too.
It’s good to be the King.
What iPhone wil need to understand is that, yes, Verizon offering iPhones will mean more “free” features for both ATT and Verizon users……at first. Then we will start to see collusion. Plans and features will start to look the same…people will need to look up at the HTML address on their browser to see whose pricing they are viewing…
This is why it is better to have iPhones on even more carriers.
just my $0.02
I love your post, because I absolutely agree with you. The jailbreak community just laugh their asses off when sh!t like this is written.
Maybe with iOS4.3, Apple can fix their own iPhone headphone microphone/button bug that disabled the microphone and buttons on 3GS’s running iOS4. I would like that original functionality back please.
Is this 4.3 upgrade for all IPhone today or later ?
Why get excited about a feature that Verizon will charge you up the wazoo for? And, why attack AT&T, when it was Verizon that wouldn’t allow Apple to create Visual Voicemail or kick off their crapware back when they were negotiating in 2006?
If AT&T wants to compete,they’ll support the Hotspot feature without cost. They should also announce that anyone on a data plan has unlimited texting too. See if Verizon will match that..
Verizon currently offers the Hotspot feature at $20/month for 2 GB plus $20/GB for overages. This is over and above your voice data and text charges. Why should AT&T, who has had over 3 years experience of 2% of the IPhone population causing havoc for the balance of all smartphone users change their fee structure. Verizon is not going to match then in a race to the bottom on charges. Carriers may stubborn and greedy but they’re not stupid.
“So Verizon customers will have their 5 devices kicked off the network when a phone call comes in?”
heh, good point.