O2 Offers Free Internet Tethering With New Tariffs

British mobile phone carrier O2 has included free Internet tethering to its newly-launched Pay Monthly tariffs for the first time, in response to growing smartphone adoption in the UK.

Tethering, which lets people use a net-connected handset as a modem to get other devices online, has been available in Apple’s iOS operating system, and version 4.3 this was extended to allow a “personal hotspot” that lets Wi-Fi devices connect to the iPhone, so iPad and iPad 2 tablets can be tethered to an iPhone using Wi-Fi. However, till now, any form of tethering has incurred an extra charge from mobile operators such as O2.

Increased Internet demand

The new 12-month tariffs are designed to be more flexible, according to the O2 blog: “Instead of offering a set combination of minutes, texts and MBs of data, you can tailor your own tariff to suit you.”

Customers can choose how many minutes and texts they want to use per month as well as how much data allowance they desire. Inclusive of Internet tethering, costs of data bundles range from £3 for 100 MB to £6 for 500 MB and £10 for 1GB. Until now, the tethering service cost users £7.65 extra.

O2 offers free Wi-Fi for everyone

As mobile-broadband adoption grows, an increasing number of UK operators have come up with new strategies to attract customers with heavy data consumption.

Earlier this year, O2 has introduced a ‘game-changing’ offer in which it will provide free Wi-Fi to everyone, whether they are an O2 customer or not. However, users have to hand over their phone numbers and become subject to adverts.

“O2 is aiming to create a scaled Wi-Fi platform that will be at least double the number of premium hotspots currently offered by BT Openzone and The Cloud combined by 2013,” said the company.

Meanwhile, 3UK has also offered two unlimited data tariffs for its pay-as-you-go customers. The move followed its “all-you-can-eat data” promotion, where Three removed the 1GB allowance available for subscribers using The One Plan bundle.

Joining the race is telecoms giant BT, which released a free iPad app for its Broadband customers to access its Wi-Fi hotspots. The company has also launched an Android and iPhone app to help users locate and connect to the nearest BT Wi-Fi hotspot.