AT&T Tethering Coming Soon; Really

We've extensively covered drama surround tethering on the iPhone (here, here and here). This time we are writing with a more positive tone -- it looks like AT&T, along with Apple, will finally bring a Phone-as-Modem (PAM) tethering plan to your iPhone soon.

This week AT&T Wireless CEO Ralph de la Vega indicated that tethering is coming to the iPhone 3G "soon." He spoke about this deveopment at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco while being interviewed by TechCrunch's Michael Arrington.

AT&T already offers tethering plans for other phones, including certain RIM Blackberry phones, but not for the iPhone, even though Apple's device can support tethering. The cost of the extant tethering service is $60 monthly, and the plan includes what is already offered by the current iPhone data plans. Its not known whether the iPhone will get the same terms of service.

Regardless De La Vega indicated that both AT&T and Apple are working together to bring tethering to the iPhone 3G.

Jailbreakers have been using tethering for almost as long as we can remember. The tethering method on jailbroken iPhones as evolved from being a manual process to one that can be accomplished via elegant apps such as iModem.