I’ve just switched from a HTC wildfire to a Iphone 4 and had managed previously on Tesco mobile to tether my Kindle fire. Now the Iphone has lost the Wifi hotspot option and Tesco are saying they dont support tethering . Any legal or illegal way round this .?

Get a phone that provides the functionality you require?

I would be careful as if Tesco don’t support tethering you could end up with a big bill that you can’t explain to them.

Strangely Colin I thought Tesco did support tethering as my HTC worked a few days ago , Its pretty strange really that you get 500mb per month and could use it to tether a tablet . Cant really see what the difference is in using your allowance on a phone or another tablet.

In most countries tethering is charged extra. I have never had problems in the uk on 3 with android.

my dad recently had to add tethering to his account with O2 as it wasn’t activated. Also with an iphone if that makes a difference.

Giffgaff give the option to add just data to the package to enable tethering, not sure about Tesco though. iPhones can be used to tether to iPads using Bluetooth.

my current o2 contract includes tethering on my iphone 5.

On my old 3 account I could only tether my iPhone if I took 2mb data allowance at an extra £5 a month.

My bb PlayBook tethers nicely with my work bb mobile for free Internet everywhere. IPad will connect to bb hotspot too. PlayBook goes through blue tooth though so better on power. RIM will return!

It’s pants isn’t it? It’s not like you’re somehow using “more” of the internet by tethering as opposed to using the phone. I assume that the HTC Hotspot function is invisible to the network. I’d have thought that the Apple one would be too, hence them removing the function from the phone itself.

So – get an un-crippled phone, or find a way of re-installing the Apple Hotspot function. I don’t know what would be involved in the latter and what the risk is of bricking the phone 😯

If it was there and has now gone

Do a network settings reset

Google it , common issue on ios 6 . Happened to me in the middle of a long train journey – was bored out me tits 🙁

I’ve a vague recollection of a work around, involving the download of an app to bypass network removed hotspot functionality. Can’t remember anything beyond that, google will know. I’d go carefully though, Tesco do state it’s a no no so could decide you owe them ££s!

can i just butt in and ask a question that has intrigued me for a while, and ive never actually asked before.

is tethering any good for laptops, streaming music etc? ive always sort of assumed itd be a slow trickle of data through a phone, so never looked at it before. am i mistaken?

its just im thinking of dumping virgin media and considering options such as talktalk for internet.
would tethering my htc desire hd on giffgaff or 3 be a viable alternative? or just not enough ooomph?

thanks

can i just butt in and ask a question that has intrigued me for a while, and ive never actually asked before.

is tethering any good for laptops, streaming music etc? ive always sort of assumed itd be a slow trickle of data through a phone, so never looked at it before. am i mistaken?

its just im thinking of dumping virgin media and considering options such as talktalk for internet.
would tethering my htc desire hd on giffgaff or 3 be a viable alternative? or just not enough ooomph?

thanksdepends on your signal obviously, if you get full whack 3G is plenty to watch youtube videos and stream music…

I wouldn’t use it as my main interweb connection though.

A few years back I got a call from 3 (my provider) offering 3g USB ‘stick’ for my laptop, for a price. I asked why would I do when I could just ‘tether’ my phone (Nokia e71).

You shouldn’t really be tethering they said, but after a couple of minutes discussion with the tele-sales chap it really seemed apparent that very few people realise that phone’s can be tethered, and most took up the extra-price option…

I still tether mine when needed, or as in two months ago when we lost broadband for a week – works fine for email and surfing.

Is it just your NP specific that isnt allowing tethering??
Im on Vodafone and i still have the wifi hotspot and it lets me use my Ipad or anything that requires internet….

If the network wants to prevent tethering it can ‘remove’ the hotspot functionality. Have my normal Vodafone sim in, hotspot is there in the menu and works fine, put a 3 pay as you go sim in and the hotspot disappears from the menu. This is with an unlocked iphone 4.