AT&T to Finally Offer iPhone Tethering Plan

Iphone users will soon be able to turn their handsets into data modems, but there will almost certainly be a price and data caps attached.

If AT&T’s earlier announcement of free Wi-Fi for iPhone users weren’t enough to Apple fans happy (and connected) in more places, the company’s latest announcement just might do the trick. Ending the days of tethering applications that violate AT&T’s terms of service, AT&T will finally release a plan that makes it possible and kosher.

AT&T Mobility president and CEO Ralph De La Vega dropped word of the upcoming plan in a conversation with TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. Though De La Vega confirmed that such a plan was on the way, he was intentionally vague about when, saying only that it would be available “soon.”

While pricing details on the plan aren’t yet known, AT&T charges a $30 premium for the tethering on its current plans (such as those for BlackBerrys), and imposes a bandwidth limit of 5GB per month.