Yesterday Telstra turned on internet tethering for the iphone! (I think they are the only carrier in Australia to do this.)

Tethering is where you use your iPhone as a wireless modem to connect your computer to the web. It’s useful if you are out with your laptop and you don’t have access to the web. Just plug your iPhone into your laptop via USB and it acts as a wireless modem! Here’s how to get it going.

1. On your iphone go to Settings General Network and if tethering is available with your mobile carrier there will be a pane called internet tethering that looks like this:

Turn it on. Tethering is now enabled on your iphone.

If you don’t see this – go to iTunes when your iPhone is connected and click on the ‘Check for update’ Button to download the new Carrier settings from Telstra.

2. Plug your iPhone into your computer via the USB cable. When tethering is on  you’ll get a message like this:

Click on network preferences and iphone will become your modem like this:

You should now be able to surf the web on your laptop. Your iphone will light up like this to show you are tethering.

Speed is great, ping a bit slow… (Make sure you are on a big data plan!)

NOTE: For other carriers (Optus, Vodaphone etc) you can do this too, click here to get the configuration file. (THis is not yet working for iPhone software 3.1 though.)