As we pointed out a while back, you’d have to be pretty nuts to want to sign up for AT&T’s iPhone tethering plan. The main issue was simply that you were paying $20 to enable the feature, and you didn’t even get any extra bandwidth, so you’d have to be mighty careful if you used that tethering ability for anything other than accessing BBSes over Telnet.
AT&T has just changed their tune, either because they love February, or because they need to retain subscribers. From now on, when you sign up for a tethering plan, you get an extra two gigs of bandwidth to burn through.
That brings the totals to $45 if you add tethering to the normal 2GB DataPro plan. If you’re already subscribed to a tethering plan, you should be receiving a text in the next week or so informing you of what you just read.
Here it is in their words:
AT&T Mobile Hotspot application: The new feature will first be available February 13 with the in-store launch of the HTC Inspire™ 4G. Bundled with the AT&T Data Pro plan, customers will benefit from a total of 4GB for $45 per month.
· 2 GB of data added to tethering plans: In addition, also on February 13th, to bring AT&T’s smartphone tethering plan in line with the AT&T Mobile Hotspot offer, AT&T will automatically add the additional 2GB of monthly data usage to smartphone customers already on a tethering plan – at no extra charge. Customers will incur the same $20 monthly fee they’re accustomed to paying, only now they’ll receive an extra 2GB of data each month that can be used among all devices. (Customers will receive a text message from AT&T – as soon as February 13 – once the additional 2GB has been auto-added to their plan.)