att tilt tethering done simple and cheap

I have an AT&T (Cingular) (HTC) Tilt with Windows Mobile 6. There’s some extra charge for tethering, I don’t know anything about that. This is kind of like the GPS in it they want you to buy Telenav or something, but it works out of the box with google maps mobile if you download it. I used the QuickGPS in the control panel somewhere to make it gps-lock faster, but that’s another converation.

Anyways, I have a laptop with ActiveSync 4.5 installed running XP Pro SP2. When I connect the phone using USB, activesync wants to sync it, which is slightly annoying because it only supports profiles for two computers, so syncing to my home desktop, work desktop and laptop is a no-fly zone.

ipconfig will show a 169.254.x.x address with no dns and the gateway pointing back to the computer with the phone I believe as a dhcp server

Anyways, if you use File Explorer on the phone to navigate to \Windows, you’ll find ‘Internet Sharing’. I haven’t figured out how to make a menu option yet, I assume there normally is one but it’s removed as Cingular wants to get that extra fee out of you. If you run this, leave it on USB and Medianet and hit connect, you’ll see it disconnect on your laptop and Windows will redetect it as a as windows mobile based internet sharing device.

ipconfig will now show a 192.168.0.x address with gateway/dhcp/dns of the phone. I assume it’s NATing. Cisco AnyConnect SSL VPN works fine through it at least, I haven’t tried anything IPSEC based though.

It looks like activesync doesn’t see the phone anymore, I figure we need to choose disconnect in Internet Sharing on the phone to make the usb cable go back to normal mode.

11 thoughts on “att tilt tethering done simple and cheap

  1. HughE Dillon

    I’m scared to death of doing this and then getting an outrageous bill at the end of the month.

    From what I’ve read, it is easy for them to distinguish IE7 on a desktop from the WM6 pocket browser.

    Please keep us posted when you get your bill.

    Thanks for your post,
    Mike

  2. btm

    I have an unlimited data PDA plan, I think I pay more for it than my Speakeasy DSL.


    Internet/MEdia Net
    UNLIMITED
    Used 252.9MB of Unlimited

    Messaging
    UNLIMITED
    Used 1516 of Unlimited

    Next Bill Cycle
    01/29/2008


    PDA Personal Add-on Unlimited Messages

    This plan is available as an add-on to voice plan for PDA devices only and includes unlimited data connect plus unlimited messaging (including text, picture, video messages and instant messaging). International messages not included.

    I don’t see the tethering option but I thought it was $10 or $20 a month. Unlimited data is unlimited data. I’m sure if you used bittorrent or something through it and racked up a ton of data they’d shut you off. We’ll see the bill a couple days though.

  3. btm

    Wireless usage charges: $0

    Of course it’d be easy to tell one browser from another as the user agent string from the browser is different. That AT&T would be monitoring your traffic for user agent strings and automatically charging you for tethering if you didn’t have it is a little ahead of the times.

    Although we do have all this crap with Comcast and whatnot, I think layer 7 inspection/filtering is still pretty expensive gear. With P2P being such a huge percentage of internet traffic, I’m sure Comcast justifies the expense knowing that they’re saving money on their infrastructure costs in the long run (provided they don’t get screwed by the government or lose all their customers).

  4. btm

    As I said in my last couple of comments. I’ve had no additional charges on my bill from data usage. I have an unlimited PDA data plan, so I wouldn’t expect any either. I don’t understand what kind of additional charges people expect to get. Data is Data. Perhaps they could terminate your data service based on the AUP if you’re using more data than they’d like you to, since there are long histories of “unlimited” not meaning “unlimited” with cellular and isps.

    Website still says:

    Internet/MEdia Net
    UNLIMITED
    Used 133.5MB of Unlimited

  5. myles

    i have the att tilt and i would like to tether it but dont know how .. i have done it with my old phone motorola razr installed driver and everything but cant with my tilt.. could you help?

  6. btm Post author

    @myles,

    All the directions are in the post. If you can’t figure it out from the directions I advise you to find someone you know that is more technical to help you with them.

  7. Chris

    That “internet sharing” program in the Windows folder works like a charm!
    AWESOME! Just don’t do it too much, if too much data is transferred then AT&T will start to catch on and they can drop you, or automatically charge you for tethering plans. So BE CAREFUL, but happy FREE tethering…

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