Droid Tethering in 2010

Though users apparently will not have the option immediately, Verizon Wireless says users of its Droid smartphones eventually will be able to use their Droids as a "dongle" to connect notebooks. The tethering capability apparently will cost an additional $15 to $50 a month above the normal data plan, depending on the usage plan any specific user already has, but will most often be an additional $30 a month.

The tethering feature will not be available until 2010, Verizon says.

Some end users are sure to complain about the additional fees, but Verizon Wireless has a sizable and growing business selling dongle access for notebooks and is understandably not anxious to cannibalize that business by allowing Droids and other smartphones to act as dongles.

Basically, the additional $30 fee makes the Droid a dongle as used with Verizon's "Mobile Broadband" service, costing $40 a month if all a user expects to use is 250 MBytes or less. The $60 monthly plan includes 5 Gbytes of usage.

Every user will have to figure out how much data they actually need to use in a month, but the tethering option will provide value for most users who need a Droid data plan and some amount of mobile broadband access for their netbooks or notebooks. If you need to use both your smartphone and your PC for Internet access parts of every month, and your combined usage from both devices does not exceed 5 Gbytes a month, that access, using tethering, costs $60 a month.

Separately, the 5 Gbyte plan and Droid data plan would cost $90 a month. On the other hand, separate data plans also means separate buckets of usage, so the value of one's choices depends on how much total usage one expects to require in a typical month.

Under most circumstances, a consumer user will find a single 5-Gbyte mobile bucket is reasonable for tethered and smartphone use. Traveling business users, expecting to use the Droid as a dongle for work purposes every month, might not find the tethering option quite so workable.

Consumers who really watch a lot of video on their PCs and mobiles will need to be quite careful about the tethering option. In that case an unlimited smartphone data plan likely is best.