AT&T Confirms It Can't Handle iPhone Tethering
AT&T has been promising customers for a year and a half that they will soon be able to tether the iPhone to laptops and other mobile devices. And yet it hasn't happened. According to a statement from AT&T, the network still isn't ready for iPhone tethering.
AT&T told tech blog Engadget that the delay isn't because they think no one wants tethering capabilities – in fact quite the opposite.
"We understand that there is great interest in tethering but cannot provide any details at this time. We know that iPhone users love their devices and mobile broadband, and that they're likely to embrace tethering just as they have other features and apps – by using it a lot," the company said in a statement.
Of course, that doesn't mean that AT&T is prepared to say tethering is coming any time soon, despite it being a goal of the company for quite some time. AT&T told Engadget, in no uncertain terms, that iPhone tethering would come when the network is good and ready.
"iPhone tethering has the potential to exponentially increase traffic , and we need to ensure that we're able to deliver excellent performance for the feature – over and above the increases in data traffic we're already seeing – before we will offer the feature," the company said.
This comes as little surprise considering how many complaints AT&T has received due to dropped calls and poor coverage for the iPhone. Tethering, or connecting a phone to a laptop in order to get a wireless signal through the phone's data plan instead of Wi-Fi, would burden the network even more than the iPhone already has.
Unfortunately, AT&T's response gives no hints as to when the network will be capable of handling iPhone tethering. As it has been for well over a year, the answer remains "Not yet."
