AT&T To Add Tethering To Smartphone Plans

AT&T has finally done it. After months of promises, the company has finally introduced tethering to its plans. With iPhone 4G making its debut on June 7th, AT&T has made sweeping changes to its smart-phone and iPad plans. The good old unlimited plan is being replaced by DataPlus and DataPro plans. That may sound like bad news, but in reality the majority of iPhone owners won’t have to sweat it.

Here is how AT&T breaks down these two plans:

Tethering is not included in the above plans. You will have to pay an additional $20 per month to enable that feature (DataPro plan required). Engadget makes a good point about tethering not faring favorably against DataConnect plans. These plans are not perfect, but they are a good start by AT&T.

As you can tell, these new plans are much easier to figure out. You won’t go bankrupt by going a bit over each month. The below table  shows what AT&T claims you can do with these plans (use data calculator to figure out your costs):

iPad’s unlimited plan is also going to be replaced with DataPro plan ($25 a month). Of course, you can always keep your $30 plan but that option won’t be available to new iPad owners. The bottom line is these new plans are much more simple to figure out and show where the industry is heading. They’ll launch on June 7th (except tethering). The unlimited plan may be gone, but it’s not as if we truly had an unlimited plan.