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Help Tethering without root or tethering plan

Kopsis

Well-Known Member
Jan 17, 2011
109
19
Tampa, FL
I can't believe I haven't seen this mentioned here ...

Folks on XDA have figured out that you can use tethering on the Inspire without a tethering plan and without rooting simply by adding an new APN in the phone's settings. Simply add an APN with the following settings:

APN=wap.cingular
Proxy=wireless.cingular.com
Port=80
Uname=WAP@CINGULAR.COM
PW=CINGULAR1
MMS Protocol=WAP 2.0
MCC=310
MNC=410

For many people that allows tethering to work. So far there has been no indication that this can be detected and force you into the tethering add-on (if they could detect it, one would think it would be disabled by now).

More details in the XDA thread: Wifi HotSpot works on Std ROM! no root needed - xda-developers
 
Try turning off WiFi (I use the HTC Sense widget), wait for your data connection to return to H+, then start the hotspot app. That's what worked for me.

Other things to try: make sure you have the new APN selected in your wireless settings (though supposedly this is not necessary). Read through the 5 pages of the XDA thread ... some people have better luck with this than others and you may be able to get some additional tips.
 
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From your homescreen, menu -settings - wireless & networks - mobile networks - access point names - menu - create new apn - then enter the info from the first post and menu then save it.

Back under wireless & network - check portable hotspot

Just noticed that I also have mobile network checked (a few below portable hotspot)
 
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From your homescreen, menu -settings - wireless & networks - mobile networks - access point names - menu - create new apn - then enter the info from the first post and menu then save it.

Back under wireless & network - check portable hotspot

Just noticed that I also have mobile network checked (a few below portable hotspot)



works like a charm. i did exactly what you said, turned off my wireless router at home, went into my wifi finder on my macbook and saw htc portable hotspot, clicked it, entered the password and had internet connection to my macbook. worked like a charm. one question thou. will att send you a text or email if they find out letting me know of the tether charge???

i am on unlimited data plan and would hate to loose it because i just got it back a few days ago.
 
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works like a charm. i did exactly what you said, turned off my wireless router at home, went into my wifi finder on my macbook and saw htc portable hotspot, clicked it, entered the password and had internet connection to my macbook. worked like a charm. one question thou. will att send you a text or email if they find out letting me know of the tether charge???

i am on unlimited data plan and would hate to loose it because i just got it back a few days ago.


good question i think they might send you a text. my cousin just got an insire (her first smart phone so she had to get a smartphone data plan. When she activated the phone shortly after she got a text confirming hr activation and $25 data plan.
 
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I suspect that the likelihood of AT&T scrutinizing your usage will largely depend on how much data you're using. If you're on unlimited and suddenly start using 100 GB per month, they may get curious. If they really want to find out what you're doing with your connection, they probably can, but you have to make it worth the effort for them.

I'm on the regular 2 GB plan and tethering for me is something I use for those "can't get to a hotspot" emergencies. My tethering usage might hit a few MB/mo. If you're running Bittorrent over your tether and AT&T decides to yank your unlimited data plan (I'm sure their lawyers have ways for them to do it), you probably won't find a lot of sympathy.
 
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I tried this, switching it on just to see what would happen, and my laptop said "Hey, there's a new hotspot nearby." Yikes - it works! It's only a matter of time before ATT wises up to this, or maybe they know and don't care, since the % of users aware of it is probably microscopic.
 
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I tried this, switching it on just to see what would happen, and my laptop said "Hey, there's a new hotspot nearby." Yikes - it works! It's only a matter of time before ATT wises up to this, or maybe they know and don't care, since the % of users aware of it is probably microscopic.

I'm thinking that as long as you don't go crazy with it and run a web-server or something they'll never find out you're using it.
 
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Agreed. I look at it this way: I'm paying the agreed-upon price ATT charges for the data, and after they cash my check, I own the agreed-upon bandwidth. Then they pulled this tethering nonsense...

It's like the city water department deciding how I should use water, yet I'm the one paying for it. No, I'm paying the agreed-upon price, so once it's downstream of the water meter, I own it and should therefore be able to use it as I wish. If ATT was doing things right, they'd have a sliding scale for pricing data, like how electricity is charged.

If ATT wants to cap data-usage to keep from overloading their system, do so in a way that benefits them, by imposing really high fees for the crazy few who go there. Don't do what they're doing now, pulling stunts of "oh, you want to use the data that way, then we'll charge more. " No.
 
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If I create this new APN, will the phone use this as default from now on? It seems to be doing that. There are two APNs created already, MediaNET and MMS. MediaNET was the default before (always selected), and now the new APN I created is always selected, even if I manually select MediaNET, when I go back and look the new APN is selected.

And will this affect network speeds?
 
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I just noticed this too and when I switch back to medianet I get a connection error telling me it cannot connect due to an invalid apn being used so now the only one that works is the new one I setup

Edit: so I spoke to a friend at ATT and asked about my phone always using the new apn and why the medianet one was essentially wiped out (everything just says not set). And he said that it was fine since all the settings in the new apn were pretty much the same as the medianet apn.
 
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If you haven't already seen the tech news today, it looks like AT&T has started cracking down on unauthorized tethering: AT&T Cracking Down on Unofficial iPhone Tethering & MyWi Users

It's not clear what detection methods are in use or whether they can/will do the same to Android users, but I would advise caution (particularly if you're on the old unlimited plan).
 
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for those of you that aren't able to detect the internet through the hotspot, here was my fix. i use APNdroid to manage my data use. and it messed with the new APN. So all you need to do is make sure u disable APNdroid and make sure your Hotspot APN is correct. thats it. so can we always use this APN and use it unlimitedly without any charges. i currently have the 200 MB plan so i need to make sure of these things. Thanks!
 
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