Tethering iPad 2 to iPhone 3Gs

Yes, it's possible - have done it myself.

You need to pair them; go into settings menu of iPhone and enable Personal Hotspot - can then pick that up on iPad (may need to enter code when prompted)

However, I have heard tales of some operators disabling this tethering capability....

Thanks for the speedy response Clare. Never noticed that option on the iPhone before! Tried it now but it says I need to contact the folk from 'the future is bright' first to set it up. I will give that a go when they open tomorrow. Thanks again, much appreciated.

You sure? I can tether my iPad to my Desire HD (Orange) without any bother. At the end of the day you're only using your 3g connection as normal, there's no reason to contact them and let them charge you more for a service you'rea llready paying for.

Hi. Yeah - spoke with them today. I'm on one of the original iPhone pay monthly contracts on Orange. Unlimited data, but with a fair use policy of 750mb a month. Apparently this only applies to data accessed by using the iPhone itself and if you study the small print doesn't include tethering facility. You have to add that as a bundled extra to your contract which is £5.10 a month for 500mb of tethered data which is then counted separately to the data you access directly using the phone. I wonder if this is different for iPhone contracts then - ropey if it is!

That's just a licence to print money for Orange. I use 500mb+ a month, all the data being via tethering my iPad.

That's an absolute rip-off. Threaten to terminate contract. If you're a long term customer, they'll agree to your demands.

2 year contact runs out Nov so not much bargaining power at the mo. Locked well and truly in.

Do this.

This whole thing is like your ISP charging you for using Wi-Fi in your own house. Infact, it's exactly that.

You may not be as locked in as you think. A friend of my son just got a new contract and handset but had three months left on his existing contract. A high street phone shop (probably against house rules to name it) gave him three months worth of costs (£90) to take out a new one with them. So, he took out a new deal with 02 with a new blackberry for free. He then called his existing supplier and moved his old contract to their lowest tariff (dolphin 15) so ended up £45 up on the deal. It's quite suprising what you can negotiate when you shop around for mobile deals.

same problem with my O2 iphone. Refers me back to an O2 webpage - that is currently not available though. Suspect they will want more cash off me

Just sharing this in case anyone here is thinking of tethering on Vodafone.

I enabled the tethering option when my Virgin Media internet connection dropped, so I could carry on using the web on my laptop.

What I didn't realise was Vodafone (and maybe others?) use different APN settings for the connection shared via tethering.  What this essentially means is Vodafone doesn't count data usage over tethering as part of your plan.  The price for using tethering? Just shy of £5.

That charge is per day, and up to 500mb. They sell an add on to your contract which enables you to pay a monthly fee instead of £5 a day.  Not sure what the charges are on PAYG.

Hope this helps - it's there in the small print, but with no prior warning when I swiped the little tethering switch to 'on', I didn't realise! 

This is the reason I bought a 3 network MiFi.  I still have the origional simplicity iPhone tarriff on 02 with unlimited data and dont want to give this up.  02 wanted me to pay more money for tethering, and drop down 500mb data limit.  I went out and bought a MiFI, 5GB data for £15.99 per month on a rolling one month contract.  My office is at the top of a building, and has no phone conector so no wifi for me there.  I would burn through 500mb of data in a week.

Vodafone's newer price plans include tethering as part of your allowance. 

Also, it's  Apple that directs tethered traffic through a specific APN, not the networks. 

True. As far as I know Android  phones generally don't have this problem. I know that Samsung, HTC, Sony and LG don't.

I have used mobile tethering on my HTC Sensation for my iPad 2 on the Vodafone network. No problems with billing whatsoever.