Verizon mentioned that it'd pick up "several Android-based devices" as part of its sweeping
tie-up with Google last week, and we know two of them -- a tweaked version of the HTC
Hero and the unannounced Motorola
Sholes / Tao / Droid -- but what else is in the pipe? Turns out that Verizon's
historically boring Open Development program -- designed to let anyone with a good attitude and some elbow grease gain the know-how to connect a device to Verizon's network -- is about to heat things up by spitting out an Android handset of its own in early 2010, according to
Unstrung. Oh, and the best part? It'll apparently feature WiFi tethering out of the box, a feature carriers are typically loath to support; of course, the whole point of "open development" is that Verizon theoretically shouldn't care what's being developed, so it'll be interesting to see whether the company throws any marketing weight and retail support behind the device or if it'll be left to fight for attention on its own.
[Via
PhoneArena]
posted Oct 13th 2009 2:21AM
I am just waitin' for Sholes....
Verizon has actually made more phones available via tethering recently. The reason? They charge $15/mo more for this "business level service." As the margins on the voice service gets tighter, this is just another source of revenue for VZW.
I got a question folks: why would one need Wi-Fi tethering? If I'm in a Wi-Fi hot spot, I can just conncect my computer
straight to the Wi-Fi source. Please advise if I'm missing anything, thanks.
wifi tethering is for those occasions when you are not by an available wifi connection, and thus you can use your phone's data connection and connect to your laptop via wifi, without the need for bluetooth or a usb cable.
Well said,
The worst part about this is its ridiculous to charge $15. I pay for up to 5gb of data on my phone, what it matter if its on a Phone or a tethered laptop?
You can already do this on Windows Mobile phones for free with WMWifiRouter
Heh I can already see how this is gonna work.. "sure you can tether all you want, do you want the 25MB plan for $9.99/mo or the 75MB plan for $19.99/mo."?