Got a tip for us? Share it...
• • RSS

Jailbreaking Allows Users to Tether the iPhone 3G to their Laptops

Monday July 21, 2008 1:59 pm PDT by Arnold Kim
Cre.ations.net posts a step-by-step guide on how to tether your iPhone 3G to your laptop.

The process of tethering allows your laptop to use your iPhone's 3G internet connection, avoiding the need to find separate internet connectivity for your laptop. Tethering, of course, is against AT&T's terms of service and could result in penalties to your account. Strangely, AT&T does offer tethering as a $30-additional fee for other 3G smartphones. It's unclear if the absence of this feature on the iPhone is due to Apple's or AT&T's reluctance, but it certainly would require Apple to integrate software support if they were to offer it.

The process is broken down into these simple steps:

- Jailbreak your iPhone 3G
- Install 3Proxy and Terminal
- Create an ad-hoc Wi-fi network using your laptop
- Join the network with your iPhone
- Find the iPhone's IP address
- Open Terminal and run the proxy program
- Open Safari on your iPhone and open a web page
- Configure your browser to use the proxy

A more detailed guide can be found at Cre.ations.net.
[ 86 comments ]

Top Rated Comments

(View all)

Avatar
MacTheSpoon
Posted: 47 months ago
Hmm, interesting. I'll bet that, similar to cut-and-paste, it's just low on the list of Apple's priorities, then, and we'll probably see it eventually.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
ShiggyMiyamoto
Posted: 47 months ago
Meh.. While this is cool and all, I did something similar using my EDGE iPhone (1st gen) and it works, but it's a pain trying to get anything other than web browsing working... I couldn't use iChat for some reason... I could only use Adium.. When there's a better way to set up proxies and forwards, I'll do it again. Until then, my 2.0 iPhone 1st gen is staying virgin of Jailbreaking.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
csmitty
Posted: 47 months ago
is AT&Ts $30 fee per month for tethering, or just flat. cuz that makes for an expensive plan. Also this seems really simple to do as well. and its not actually "tethered" in a physical meaning, maybe you could get around it?
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
arn
Posted: 47 months ago

is AT&Ts $30 fee per month for tethering, or just flat. cuz that makes for an expensive plan. Also this seems really simple to do as well. and its not actually "tethered" in a physical meaning, maybe you could get around it?


For other AT&T smartphones.

It's $30 for unlimited data
$30 additional for tethering

So $60 total for unlimited data + tethering.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
mixel
Posted: 47 months ago

Hmm, interesting. I'll bet that, similar to cut-and-paste, it's just low on the list of Apple's priorities, then, and we'll probably see it eventually.

Jeez, I hope so!

Other phones let you do it, but if the iphone takes off as much as Apple hope, and they make it as easy as Apple usually do - not sure all of the telecos will like it. O2 wouldn't mind here in the UK tho, probably.. So .. Yeah .. I'd love this feature - its the only thing which I keep my old S/E .. even though it's nowhere near 3G speeds sometimes it's a really handy feature.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
Hodapp
Posted: 47 months ago

Hmm, interesting. I'll bet that, similar to cut-and-paste, it's just low on the list of Apple's priorities, then, and we'll probably see it eventually.


Doubtful, considering AT&T currently offers a 5GB data plan that allows for tethering for $60 a month. Be very careful with tethering your phone without a data plan that allows for it, there have been quite a few horror stories on Howard Forums with people thinking they're getting over on AT&T by tethering, then AT&T notices their suspicious data activity, figures out they're tethering, then cancels their data plan and bills them per kilobyte.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
jwpedersen
Posted: 47 months ago
The article mentions penalties from at&t. How would at&t know that you are tethered to your mac? Newbie here so take it easy on me.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
ShiggyMiyamoto
Posted: 47 months ago

The article mentions penalties from at&t. How would at&t know that you are tethered to your mac? Newbie here so take it easy on me.


I'm assuming they can track where the data is flowing, and whether it's between the device and their network, or the device, their network, and a connected computer.

Welcome to the forums btw.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
Hodapp
Posted: 47 months ago

The article mentions penalties from at&t. How would at&t know that you are tethered to your mac? Newbie here so take it easy on me.


From a network administrator's standpoint, it would be really easy to tell based on traffic patterns, which ports are in use, etc. The biggest tell though is the amount of data you'd be using. AT&T has a soft cap around 5GB where you raise a red flag. If you use enough bandwidth to get AT&T to notice you, and they start going through your usage and notice you're connecting to torrent ports, or P2P ports... you'd have a lot of explaining to do when they call you on it.

On the other hand, if you only tether to check things on the internet or look at your email along with other normal things you can do on your iPhone... there's not much reason for them to ever catch you.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
ShiggyMiyamoto
Posted: 47 months ago

From a network administrator's standpoint, it would be really easy to tell based on traffic patterns, which ports are in use, etc. The biggest tell though is the amount of data you'd be using. AT&T has a soft cap around 5GB where you raise a red flag. If you use enough bandwidth to get AT&T to notice you, and they start going through your usage and notice you're connecting to torrent ports, or P2P ports... you'd have a lot of explaining to do when they call you on it.

On the other hand, if you only tether to check things on the internet or look at your email along with other normal things you can do on your iPhone... there's not much reason for them to ever catch you.


Exactly. I had my 1st EDGE iPhone tethered to my MacBook via TinyProxy, and I was able to go on AIM, and surf the web, albeit slowly. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't torrent, especially on EDGE's dialup speeds...

Doubtful, considering AT&T currently offers a 5GB data plan that allows for tethering for $60 a month. Be very careful with tethering your phone without a data plan that allows for it, there have been quite a few horror stories on Howard Forums with people thinking they're getting over on AT&T by tethering, then AT&T notices their suspicious data activity, figures out they're tethering, then cancels their data plan and bills them per kilobyte.


io, I know exactly what you're saying. One summer at the local swimming pool I took my mom's cell phone and I started using the mobile AIM on it. We were charged per (by T-Mobile at the time) message ala txt msg charges aka 5-10 cents per message. I was doing this for over a half hour, racking up a $15 additional bill to our phone bill. Now that I have my own plan on AT&T I can txt and do stuff as much as I want, within reason. I use my data plan alot, but I use txting minimally as I only have 200/month.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives

[ Read All Comments ]