T-Mobile Adds Tethering for Some Devices for $15 a Month

T-Mobile USA apparently is offering a new tethering that allows some of its smartphones to function as wireless modems for connecting devices such as laptops, tablets and netbooks to the Internet through the T-Mobile network. At the moment you will not find that information on the T-Mobile USA website, as nearly as I can determine.

Customers who buy the unlimited data access plan will be able to add the "Tethering and Wi-Fi Sharing" plan for an additional $14.99 per month.

Tethering is available for some devices offered by Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel as well, for about $30 a month. Some consumers won't see the logic here, the thought being that they've already bought unlimited mobile data access and should be able to share that bandwidth with a PC they also use.

Service providers of course make substantial money selling mobile data connections on a "per device" basis, so their resistance to the notion is probably predictable. Sooner or later, though, as more mobile devices become Internet-capable, pressure is bound to mount for the broadband equivalent of family plans. In a sense, a fixed broadband connection already operates that way: users can attach as many devices as they like to a single fixed broadband connection.

At some point, mobile providers will start offering those sorts of data plans as well, allowing a single account to attach multiple mobile devices and pay one price for shared access.

T-Mobile New Low-Cost Data Service Plans