Tethering with mobile phones has been around for a while although back in the early days of GPRS it was often worse than dial up (not to mention an order of magnitude more expensive). These days with USB, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity it seems odd that some smartphones have been slow to allow users the ability to tether.
For instance, Apple was highly criticised for its slow deployment of tethering functionality in its phones and Windows Phone 7 will not have the functionality in its initial release. Meanwhile, Android has not offered tethering as part of the stock firmware until Froyo (Android 2.2) leaving OEMs to make their own enhancements to fill the gap. Even then, carriers have had the ability to strip out or suppress the function in devices.
Why is tethering such an issue?
One could argue that wireless bandwidth is such a precious resource and with booming mobile broadband market around the world managing supply and demand can be tricky. Limiting open slather access to tethering may go some way to assist in network management but can also annoy customers who are expecting to be able to use the ever growing data allowances with their mobile plans (that may be otherwise impossible to use just by using the mobile phone).
Personally, I think tethering should be made available by default in smartphones. I think for the vast majority of people it will be something that is used when the fixed line broadband goes offline at home or you need to work on your work laptop via VPN whilst you are out and about. Of course, there will be those road warriors amongst us that will lap it up but I believe they are the minority. Others still will like the novelty until it wears off.
We live in a connected world so I think this is a no brainer.
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