iPad tethering with MyWi

[The UnDoug]

I'm seriously considering an iPad 2 purchase, and wonder about whether or not to get 3G. I'm pretty confident that I'd use the 3G for at most one or two 2 week periods each year (when vacationing). Almost not worth it, but still would be nice to have.

I have a jail broken iPhone, and know about using MyWi to tether, and wonder if that would work just as well. My main concern is that ATT/Verizon may crack down on MyWi tethering. I've seen stories about them sending out texts to folks who are using MyWi, but haven't heard much more than that.

Anybody here using MyWi with an iPad? Any concern about getting a big, unexpected bill form your carrier as a result?

[cbelt3]

Based on your statement, I'd recommend you tether from your iPhone, and skip the 3G ipad.

[dotman]

personally, i'd get the 3g but only buy 3g if you absolutely needed it. otherwise, go wireless or tether. then you'd be covered no matter what.

dot.

[Chakravartin]

PdaNet claims to mask tethering from AT&T. You could try that app.

In my experience, 3G->WiFi tethering under AT&T is pretty awful. Unless you're in an ideal location, it's painfully slow and there are frequent timeouts while web browsing and checking email.

This has been my experience while attempting to use a MBP to connect to the 'net via iPhone. An iPad will be less demanding of bandwidth than a Mac so it may not have the same trouble.

[mstudio]

I had a similar quandary and decided to get the 3G. I have been very happy with that decision. It's there if needed and I have found I use it more than I thought I would.

[tronnei]

I'm using MyWi on my 3G iPad (first gen) and it provided a fairly decent stable connection for my MacBook. Haven't used it since March, so I don't know if any of the recent crackdowns on tethering have messed with it.

[deckeda]

UnDoug, I've read that "I was just watching a lot of Netflix that week" will get the carrier off your back from tethering hassles. They don't actually know that you're tethering, they only see the spike in data usage, which only further begs the question of why do they make people pay to do it when they can't actually tell they're using tethering?

Anyway, with packet sniffing, the Netflix defense wouldn't go too far if they really wanted to snoop. But with only a few weeks' use of tethering, they won't bother you.

Your bigger concern for unauthorized tethering is if you ever want to move beyond iOS4. Jailbraking under iOS5 has been squelched. It may happen if the mouse once again is smarter than the cat, or it may not.

[rz]

I don't understand... isn't the point of a MyWi to tether to it? How does AT&T know, or why should they care?

[Ken Sp.]

Oe thing to remember, of the $130 you pay for 3G, you would get at least half of the price difference back when you resell it.

[deckeda]

rz wrote:
I don't understand... isn't the point of a MyWi to tether to it? How does AT&T know, or why should they care?

They care because they want you to pay $20/month for the ability and the privilege to tether. MyWi bypasses that income. And so they look for more or less continual data usage on the phone and if they surmise you're tethering this way, send you a note about adding the official tether option.

But at this point it's an educated bluff. They don't apparently have a way to know that data coming into the phone isn't being consumed by the phone. Perhaps if they noticed that ports used or data types normally worthless to the phone were being consumed, they'd suspect you were tethering by implication. But unless and until iOS actively reports back to the carrier what's happening, the carrier wouldn't know for sure. Even then, a user could install an additional app to obfuscate that, no doubt.

All of this is of course crap, and has parallels to content viewing on "approved" devices. Basic Hulu not being available built into TVs for example. You could watch Hulu all day long on your computer, or watch it all day long directly from a TV if it were available---either way it wouldn't matter to Hulu, but to the content creators a TV is a magical box of viewing convenience that must be carefully monetized and controlled.