How to Tether Your iPhone 3.1.2

Sebastien, Nov 5, 2009

With the release of BlackSn0w, it is now possible to tether your iPhone running OS 3.1.2.

For those of you who don’t know what tethering is, it basically allows you to use your iPhone as a modem in order to share the internet connection with a computer. For example, this post was written on my laptop while tethering my iPhone in Los Angeles airport.

UPDATE: This post is outdated. For the latest information about tethering your iPhone, please visit this page.

Step 1: Unlock your iPhone using BlackSn0w. See my BlackSn0w tutorial.

Step 2: From your iPhone, navigate to help.benm.at, hit  tethering, choose your country and carrier, hit download, then hit Install.

Step 3: Reboot your iPhone.

Step 4: Go to Settings > General > Network > Internet Tethering and turn it on.

You’re done!

You should now be able to tether your iPhone, either via bluetooth or USB.

Pretty simple, isn’t it?

 
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  • Michael

    I don’t know what the fuck I did but it works now thanks for the tips Chris ur awesome

  • Chris T

    Mikey,

    Can I call you Mikey? Anyway, grats to you! This is a family hacker board, though, so be careful what you say or the yuppies will bury you.

    Good post! Out of curiosity, did you run blacksn0w or something like that to unlock? I ask only out of concern for you, mind–unlocking is riskier than making parole, and you should know what to be cautious of if you did.

    Win for you, anyway.

    -Chris T

  • Jay ray

    I get to the download button and then nothing happens…… Please help!

  • Chris T

    Mikey,

    Can I call you Mikey? Anyway, grats to you! This is a family hacker board, though, so be careful what you say or the yuppies will bury you. …Maybe not.

    Good post! Out of curiosity, did you run blacksn0w or something like that to unlock? I ask only out of concern for you, mind–unlocking is riskier than making parole, and you should know what to be cautious of if you did.

    Win for you, anyway.

    -Chris T

    _-_

    -_-

    Cody B,

    No, you da man!

    Do you use Mac or Windows? (And nobody here start bashing one over the other. This is a community of learners, remember, kids?) I ask because I’ve only run PdaNet on a Mac and I’m wondering how (and if, and how well) it works on Windows.

    Some PDANet notes and tips:

    -Seems like I’ve finally figured out what the issue is with it being paid or free. The free version will start blocking everything except port 80 after the fourteen-day trial expires. I can mostly verify this; that is, I know absolutely that almost all ports are blocked. I’m still testing to be sure that *all* ports are blocked. Now, this does mean that you could rig something kind of interesting to get through any way with a remote VPN server, but I don’t have a reason to do this yet, so I’m not going to worry about it. Let me know if that’d be real important to you, though, and I’ll consider looking into it when I have time. ;)

    -The app runs in the background automatically, which is awesome. It is worth noting that the app-makers recommend you leave it in the foreground before letting your iPhone sleep if you’re going to be tethering for a long time. That’s supposed to keep the iPhone from killing its network connections (which it will normally do after a few minutes asleep, to save power). I don’t know if their suggestion works, since I haven’t tried leaving the app up and don’t much feel like doing it; I avoid the problem entirely with Insomnia.

    — Insomnia keeps the iPhone from killing its network connections when it sleeps. That way you can keep a download, ping, or tethering app (like this one) running indefinitely (unless your battery runs out) without ever having to touch it. I use it, I love it.

    — Don’t overuse Insomnia; those network connections use a lot of power, especially long-term. If you’re not actually running anything that needs to stay up, leave Insomnia off.

    -A lot of people have complained about it being buggy. A lot of those same people are trying to run torrent clients from their computers through the connection. Just… no. This is great for browsing, even online games, but you can’t pull that many connections through the iPhone without it glitching out. I’ve run up to twenty simultaneous internet connections through the iPhone, pulling data in multiple programs at pretty impressive rates, but don’t push your limits if you don’t have to.

    -Watch your data transfer amounts and rates with your wireless carrier. They don’t like this, and several (like AT&T) will charge extra if you get too much data through your iPhone.

    -If you plan on using this frequently, try installing the SBSettings Toggle for it. Works beautifully, in my experience, though if you switch modes frequently (from USB to WiFi, for instance), it won’t be worth it, since it just turns the PdaNet router on and off.

    — If you don’t have SBSettings, I recommend it. You can get it through Cydia. Remember only to display toggles you actually use, though, to maximize usefulness and minimized processor load.

    — If you don’t have Cydia, well, get it. It’s The Other App Store. We all love it. Where have you been?

    Okay, then. Have fun with your new toy, but don’t forget your chores.

    -Chris T

  • Chris T

    (Double post? Dang, and I was on a roll. Another time, another place, things could have been different, Mikey–but you and me, we were never meant to be.)

    Jay ray,

    Please see the following: http://tiny.cc/wik4h

    Learn how to make flapjacks, too. They’re great.

    -Chris T

  • http://hawaiidoc.fr.gd/ le Guillou

    Je suis un graphiste informatique

  • Juan

    How i put in 3.1.3

  • Patrick

    Ok… I’m at my wit’s end over this. I have satellite internet and I am tired of being saddled with slow speeds for online gaming and the fair access policy (look that term up and cringe). We exceded our FAP last night so I decided to just give in to this jailbreaking/unlocking/tethering propaganda. I JBed my phone with Blackra1n (surprise!), unlocked it with blacksn0w (yep, I was paying attention), and went to the benm.at site and got that tethering crap. I am using a 3GS that was purchased maybe 5-6 months ago. I have unlimited data plan etc.

    Now for the problem. A) Tethering doesn’t work for more than 10 seconds, and if I watch my phone “loading wheel” I can see it actually starting and stopping sporadically which is probably the cause of such unpredictable behaviour. B) My phone runs as slow as molasses and I even took the time to clean out 4gig of music files just to be sure everything would be fine. C) since the JB is tethered, I have to sit here and reset, unplug, replug, make it ra1n, rinse repeat rinse rinse repeat rinse repeat for however many times the program feels like making me do while it sits and laughs at my frustration. There’s no guarantee that any method explained on any of these things will work for ANYTHING. Because I have tried damn near everything mentioned.

    On the bright side, I was able to connect for nearly 40-50 minutes earlier and played a little bit of World Of Warcraft. The latency was actually under 400ms for the most part which made me a VERY happy camper and made my hopes VERY high until it came crashing down and pretty much made my iphone a paperweight.

    IF you have any sort of input on this, please tell me what to do. Because at this point I think it would just be better to restore my phone and not worry about ramifications from AT&T.

  • Patrick

    Oh, I have 3.1.2 btw, because the update was too large to download on my internet connection.

  • Patrick

    Oh and my actual internet is running 100x slower since downloading blackra1n.

  • Chris T

    Le Guillou,

    Félicits, mon ami. Pourquoi est-il question? Si vous avez un problème, dites-nous.

    Adios,

    -Chris T

  • Chris T

    Juan,

    Please see the following: http://tiny.cc/wik4h

    Somewhere,

    -Chris T

  • Chris T

    Patrick,

    Don’t give up! I’m on the case! But today’s one of my seven busy days, so hold out a little bit until I have some time, okay? Like, say, tomorrow. Then we’ll work through this!

    For starters, good post, but verify:

    -Your baseband.

    -Any other mods you made to the iPhone other than the Craig Charles, unlock, and tether profile download.

    -Whether or not you’ve tried the alternative profiles http://m.peacefulinsanity.com/Tether.mobileconfig http://www.iphone-notes.de/mobileconfig/ or http://gumballtech.com/files/Tether.mobileconfig

    -Whether you’ve tried PdaNet. Now, I’m not saying we shouldn’t try to get this working, seeing as you’ve got 3.1.2 and it totally should, but connectivity is one of the things we’ll check when we get wrist-deep in this.

    Now, uh, if I’m getting a little intense here, there IS the “easy way”–that is, undoing everything and going back to scratch. But that also won’t be plain as unseasoned rice, since the unlock, as I noted, is a little deeper than an executive pardon.

    You can do this, Patrick! Be strong!

    Don’t eat the yellow snow!

    -Chris T

  • Cody B

    Hey again Chris,

    I have a Windows PC running XP. Pda Net installed easy and runs flawlessly at the moment. Been too short of a time to notice if I have any real quams with it, but seems to be rockin’ and rollin’ as we speak.

    Anywho, thanks for all the tips and I’ll keep them in mind when tethering. BTW, the Pda Net trial still lets it work when the 14 days runs out, it just blocks you from going to secure websites…so….yea, I’ll be trying your port 80 thing when that time comes :)

    Thanks again,

    Cody B.

  • Patrick

    Wow downloaded PDAnet. Were people complaining this was slow? I was just downloading at 2meg a second. I have no problem paying money for this even remotely! Just gotta see how it works at my house before completely settling on it.

  • Chris T

    (Psst! Cody B,

    Let me know, eh? It *says* secure websites, but it really means “everything except port 80.” So far. I’m not done testing still. It’s kind of inconvenient to run a test like that. Anyway, that means you can’t send e-mail unless you do it through the browser, you can’t use FTP or RDP or VNC or VLC or most anything else, and, iiif I’m right, you can’t do any “proper” online gaming–that is, only flash games. No WoW or fancy jazz like that. If you find anything proving me wrong, let me know, eh? Otherwise, get hold of me when you need that little VPN trick and I’ll see if it’s even possible.

    Bang.

    -Chris T)

  • Chris T

    Patrick,

    Zipadee! Glad you’ve finally got some sunshine heading your way.

    Before you get too excited, make sure it works where and when you need it. I wouldn’t buy it before the trial expires, either, ’cause you want to know, and that’s the whole point of a trial.

    Oh, also, you might be able to live with just the expired trial version. (But take a peek at my private note to Cody B and you may rapidly decide that it just ain’t good enough, especially since you like the World.) It’s also conceivable that such a system could be hacked as I’ve proposed, that is to say, “so it works anyway.” But I’d have to get back to you on that.

    Another little thing? You said your actual internet was slow as sin coated in molasses and dragged across rubber cement (or something like that). If there are other problems than this tethering thing, give a shout-out and we’ll see what we can do.

    Finally, grats proper! Sounds like it’s working for you. Given the other stuff you’ve tried, I’d be cautious–in particular, delete the tethering profiles you downloaded. Other than that, optimism abounds and it’s a wonderful life.

    Keep us posted

    Satisfactual,

    -Chris T

  • http://Cegoeupicis@Yahoo.com Cespisc

    No mas

  • Patrick

    Well my normal connection is Hughesnet Satellite… so there’s no hope for me there. My phone works very well, would like a little less latency but I only get 3-4 bars at my house. Perhaps I will try to find a cell booster for iphone, got any suggestions?

  • Chris T

    Cespisc,

    ¿No más de qué? Debe usar más palabras. Queremos ayudarle, pero tienes que decimos cómo. ¿Comprende?

    Au revoir,

    -Chris T

  • Chris T

    Patrick.

    Legend has it that there are Certain Mysterious Procedures that, while suspicious and potentially dangerous (also, they void the warranty), can provide impressive boosts.

    Since I’m hacked to heck and back anyway and I’ve got a pretty convenient near-dead zone close by for testing, I’ll try a couple things and let you know how they go.

    I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today,

    -Chris T

  • Taylor

    Could this work on iPod touch 3g 32gig 3.1.3?

  • Tran thanh huan

    Need to connect by tethering

  • Malky

    After finding my country (uk) and carrier (02 contract) click download and nothing hapens no option to install, it just stays on download screen

  • Chris T

    Taylor,

    “Tran thanh huan,”

    Malky,

    Please see the following: http://tiny.cc/wik4h

    (URLs are like midgets, not manuals. Make them short and friendly–not long and hard to read.)

    -Chris T

  • Chris T

    (Patrick,

    Let me know if there’s a rush, but I haven’t forgot or anything. I’m in interruptus laboris, so when my opus operis, your opusculus will be adficio, declensions be damnosus!

    *…nods*

    -Chris T)

  • Unkut

    I unlock my phone and dowlaod the profile still no workin

  • Chris T

    Unkut,

    Please see the following: http://tiny.cc/wik4h

    Especially the bits about posting your details if you need help.

    Grazie,

    -Chris T

  • Jlesperance

    I already am able to use Internet tethering with my iPhone thru my carrier Telus in Canada. I pay for the use now, if I download and tether thru this app will my carrier know the difference, and will it cost me just the same?

  • Shone

    Really good thing

  • Nuggs

    Can u give an xbox the wifi fo live

  • Chris T

    Jlesperance,

    Short answer: costs the same. Don’t bother with the app.

    Long answer:

    -1) The method posted here involving help.benm.at is not an app. It just enables tethering on certain iPhones that don’t already have it enabled. You do already have it enabled, so this is worthless to you. PdaNet is just some extra features–there’s no advantage as far as data usage goes.

    -2) Tethering one way and tethering another way are basically the same thing, and as far as the carrier can tell, they’re no different than surfing the web from your iPhone–it’s all just data to them. They can’t charge “tethering data” separately from “regular data” because they can’t tell them apart. Some have an extra fee just to allow tethering, but…

    -3) TELUS doesn’t have a separate tethering fee for iPhone plans, so you only have to worry about your data plan. If you tether a lot, your data usage can skyrocket; check up on your usage regularly (you can use their website) to make sure you’re not going over. Overage fees can get surprisingly nasty if you tether heavily and don’t keep track.

    Mmkay?

    Mmkay.

    -Chris T

  • Chris T

    Nuggs,

    What?

    Also, please see the following: http://tiny.cc/wik4h

    Also, you may need to use the following: http://tinyurl.com/3qe7

    Also, what?

    (Sure, I could guess what you mean. But I’ll only go as far to help you as you’re willing to go to help yourself. It’s standard procedure.)

    -Chris T

  • kevin

    when I installed the app I lost my tethering option on my iPhone how do get it back I tried reboot my phone and it still never came back how do I fix this problem

  • Ricardo

    No me puedo conectar a Internet utilizando iPhone

  • Dave Angel

    Hi, I have had tethering working on 02 uk pay and go for a few weeks… It stopped last night for some unknown reason? The phone still has the tethering option and I can turn it on as usual and it continues to glow blue at the top of the screen. However my mac says that the iPhone USB has a self assigned ip address and may not be able to connect to the Internet?

    Any suggestions as to why this Is and any ideas how to fix?

    Many thanks – iPhone 3g 3.0.1

  • Chris T

    Kevin,

    My condolences! Please see the following: http://tiny.cc/wik4h

    Specifically the part about posting your specifications.

    Also, if you were already tethering fine, why did you install the profile?

    Double negativing our way away from greatness,

    -Chris T

  • Chris T

    Ricardo,

    ¿Qué quiere decir que no se puede conectar *con* su *iPhone*, o que no se puede conectar *a través del* iPhone con su *computadora*?

    Estamos hablando de “tethering”–atar–que se conecta su computador al iPhone a conectarse a Internet utilizando la conexión de datos de tu iPhone. Es sobre todo útil si usted no tiene WiFi disponibles para su computador.

    Ser más claro, por favor. Si usted puede entender Inglés, trata de leer por aqui: http://tiny.cc/wik4h

    Si no, trato de explicar su problema con más detalle, gracias.

    Lebewohl!

    -Chris T

  • Chris T

    Dave Angel,

    Huh. First person I’ve heard of using Pay & Go with an iPhone, but good for you, I guess.

    First thing to do: check your account at http://www.o2.co.uk/

    Second thing to do: verify that your iPhone is connecting to your computer properly with that USB cord. Just pull up iTunes and try to sync ‘em when they’re connected; if the sync works fine, you should be good. If you want to be double-double sure, you may want to try reading something from your iPhone onto your computer. On a Mac, you can just use Image Capture to download photos; I’m not sure what a Windows equivalent would be just now. We can come back to this if the other stuff fails.

    If your account is fine and your cord is fine, turn your iPhone on for a bit and wander around the webs. I don’t know how detailed the usage reports from O2 are, so you may need to download some big files–try watching episodes of Elevator on YouTube, that’ll suck up your time pretty quick–the point here is to see if you’re able to use your data connection normally and if they can see and measure it. If your usage goes up (any fractional amount visible and measurable is enough here; don’t go wasting away gigs upon gigs of surfing time just for a test), that shows that the problem isn’t your data connection, per se.

    If your account is fine, your cord is fine, and your iPhone’s data connection is registering okay, reboot your computer *and* your iPhone (doesn’t matter if you do it at the same time or while they’re connected or what, I just want you to restart them both), then, assuming they’re working fine, try to hook ‘em back up and do some tethering. Disable any other network connections on your computer when you try this, and after they’re connected, “Repair” (if on Windows XP or prior), “Diagnose” (if on Windows Vista or 7), or “Assist me…” and “Diagnostics” (if on Mac OS X) your iPhone connection.

    If, after all that, nothing’s worked and you can’t tether, even though your iPhone says you can, come on back and we’ll talk more.

    Real quick, though, if you had tethering already enabled, what are you doing *here,* at a post about how to *enable* tethering?

    Pay & Go – Public Urinals Made Easy!

    -Chris T

  • David

    Hi,
    The hungarian vodafone APN settings are not correct. It would be “internet.vodafone.net”. With the one used in the app it doesn’t work. A fix would be nice. Thanks,

  • http://061186 Randall

    Mi mama

  • Tonny

    Can I use teethering without blacksnow and in Ghana?

  • http://Www.Google.com Marie

    Holaaaaa

  • Jon

    Didn’t work at all tried this 3 times and it didn’t work help

  • Sal

    I am using a mac mini 2.4gh -iphone3G with 3.1 and 4.26.08 can I still use this teathering or do I need to do something else? Please help as I NEED TEATHERING — yes I’m jailbroke with pwnage tool and unlocked with ultrasnow but unfortunally I am with AT&T but I still should beable to dothis????

  • Ricky

    Nice

  • Chris T

    David,

    I’m workin’ on it, but it’s proven kinda tough for me to get ahold of that version of the profile without actually installing it. Any chance you can get at the raw file of yours and upload it somewhere? (Feel free to strip any personal information, but I can’t edit the tethering profile without the profile.)

    Get me that tethering profile, or a direct link to it, and, if the problem is what you describe it to be, a fix will be child’s play.

    Playing like a child,

    -Chris T

  • Chris T

    Tonny,

    I have no idea what carrier you’re using and what kind of signal you may get, which are kinda the important things when it comes to tethering in Ghana.

    As for blacksn0w, well, yes and no. You don’t have to use blacksn0w specifically, but if you’re not unlocked, odds are wonderful that it won’t work at all.

    Ghana keep on keepin’ on,

    -Chris T

  • Devon

    For some reason, when I go to settings and network, tethering isn’t there. Also I can’t install the sources needed to use it. Please help!

  • Chris T

    Jon,

    Please see the following: http://tiny.cc/wik4h

    Ta,

    -Chris T

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