iPhone tethering, in Ireland
USB or bluetooth tethering, unlocked!
One of the big touted features in the arsenal of the 3.0 update to iPhones was the ability to tether it to your computer. A hacked feature allowed for it through cydia previously, but now Apple were offering it. No need for 3G dongles, strange price plans or anything “extra”. Just use your iPhone plan and go online, anywhere.
This is particularly difficult in Ireland, because places don’t automatically offer WiFi to customers, free. I was recently in Amsterdam where there was a huge abundance of wifi available from any random location (Holland is one of the worlds’ primary internet nodes). I was also in Boston, where wifi was available, but never free, much like Ireland.
So, now go to Starbucks safe in the knowledge you can check your mail etc. without paying the scandalous €6 per hour price to get crap internet speeds. Using your (ideally) iPhone 3G or 3GS.
Keep in mind Apple have updated the iPhone software since the 3.0 software update, but this “trick” works fine. Your phone doesn’t need to be hacked, unlocked or jailbroken. All you’re doing is installing a “profile” for your settings which will unlock the feature specifically for your network, and network type.
In your iPhone, go to this page, and click on whichever network you’re on. It’ll ask to install the profile, confirm, then restart your phone. When you’ve done this, go to your network settings section and there’s a tethering option. Once you plug your device to your computer (via USB or bluetooth) the computer will automatically recognize the phone as an internet device. Win!
3
Contract
So far there’s no solution for Meteor or 3 pre-paid. I would make one but I can’t find specific information relating to the Meteor service. The profiles are provided by jellySMS who also have UK network profiles, should you be stumbling here via search results, etc.!
Keep in mind my phone is factory-unlocked on Vodafone. It’s an iPhone second-generation, 3G. This works perfectly on the 3.0.1 update recently uploaded by Apple. I have seen this work fine on “legitimate” iPhone’s too, so there’s no issue there. I’m not responsible for what happens with your phone, or the potential charges you incur from data charges!
Enjoy!
John
April 5, 2010
2:38 am
Sorry, folks, the JellySMS site deal will not work with anything after 3.01 Seeing as 4.0 is out in June I would advise leaving it alone, and some sharpie will figure out a new way to get around this ridiculous charge from O2. I mean you buy a data bundle…but you don’t, cos you have to pay for a different kinda data bundle, which uses native capability on your phone….only in Ireland!!
Michael
September 6, 2010
4:51 pm
Tethering data is completely different from your phone data! If you use tethering you will pay extra for it. It will NOT go from your usage data. (Three allows only 500 MB from your data plan. O2 is completely out of it and it will cost you about 10 Euro for 1GB of usage, but I think it will be actually a LOT more). In other words tethering is useless as it’s artificially blocked by providers making you pay extra. They just love it. Small print extras that is.