IntoMobile

Breaking news, information, and analysis on the latest mobile phones and mobile technology

Open NavigationOpen Search

Tether your iPhone 3G to your laptop – Use your iPhone 3G as a wireless modem

by - 25 Comments

The iPhone tethering solution (“tethering” is a method that allows your laptop to use your mobile phone’s wireless data connection to surf the web, check email, etc.) that allowed first-generation iPhone owners to hop on the information superhighway at EDGE speeds wasn’t exactly what you would call preferred method for getting web access on-the-go. But, EDGE data speeds were enough for short-stints of web-surfing and email checking – when you absolutely need an internet-fix with no landline or WiFi hotspot in sight.

[Update]
There’s now an easier way to tether your iPhone 3G and iPhone to your laptop. PDAnet allows you to use your iPhone as a wireless modem without any of the terminal commands required in this tutorial. PDAnet also allows you to use your iPhone and iPhone 3G’s wireless data connection to check email and send Instant Messages in addition to browsing the web. Find the new iPhone 3G tether tutorial here.

[Update2]
Tethering your iPhone 3G is even easier with iPhone OS 3.0 installed. The newly released iPhone 3.0 OS supports data tethering out-of-the-box, it just takes a little (very little) hackery to get it to work.

Find the updated iPhone 3G tethering hack here.

iPhone 3G tether With the iPhone 3G launched in over 22 countries, mobile warriors the world over are cruising along at UMTS/HSPA speeds with abandon. And, now that the iPhone Dev Team has busted the iPhone 3G out of its file-system lock-down, second-generation iPhone 3G owners can now tether that delicious 3G data connection to their data-hungry laptops. Forget EDGE, 3G data is how you want to be perusing the intertubes, regardless of whether you’re using an iPhone or laptop.

You’ll need to jailbreak your iPhone 3G to its 3G data connection through to your laptop, so make sure you brush up on your iPhone 3G jailbreak protocol before jumping in to this iPhone 3G tethering guide.

Follow this tutorial to get your iPhone 3G tethered and playing nice with your laptop:

  1. Jailbreak your iPhone 3G
  2. Install 3Proxy and MobileTerminal
    1. Fire up the “Cydia” application that was installed during the iPhone 3G jailbreak
    2. Navigate to Install>All Packages
    3. Find and install MobileTerminal
    4. Find and install 3Proxy
    5. Hit the “Home” button to verify that MobileTerminal is now installed on the homescreen (3Proxy isn’t a GUI app, so you won’t see an application icon)
  3. Create an ad-hoc WiFi network on your laptop laptop
    1. Name it something memorable – like “Tether-ific”
  4. Lock your iPhone 3G on to the ad-hoc WiFi network you just created
    1. Settings>WiFi Networks
  5. Find out your iPhone’s IP address
    1. Setting>WiFi Networks
    2. Tap on the little blue arrow to the right of the WiFi network you just joined – “Tether-ific,” in this case
    3. Write down the iPhone IP address
  6. Fire up MobileTerminal on your iPhone 3G
    1. Execute the proxy program
      1. Type in “socks” and hit enter
      2. You won’t get any confirmation that the SOCKS server is up and running, but it is
      3. Hit the “Hom” button to return to homescreen
        1. Remember to quit the MobileTerminal application by opening it later and holding down the “Home” button and forcing it to quit
  7. Start up your iPhone’s Safari browser and open a web page
    1. Wait for your iPhone’s Safari browser to realize that it can’t use the ad-hoc WiFi network (because it leads nowhere, for now) and then switch to using the 3G data connection
    2. This step takes a little while, so be patient
  8. Configure Firefox to use your iPhone proxy
    1. Preferences>Advanced>Network>Setting
    2. Find the “SOCKS Host” field and enter the IP address you wrote down earlier
    3. Set port to”1080″
    4. Go to Firefox’s address bar and type in “about:config”
      1. Hit Enter
    5. Find the “Filter” field and type in “socks”
      1. Hit Enter
    6. Find the entry that looks like “network.proxy.socks_remote_dns”
      1. Double click
    7. Change value to “true”
  9. You’re done, get to surfing the web through your new iPhone 3G tether!

Remember to quit MobileTerminal when you’re done surfing at 3G speeds. Start up MobileTerminal again and hold down the “Home” button until the application force-quits

[Update2]
Tethering your iPhone 3G is even easier with iPhone OS 3.0 installed. The newly released iPhone 3.0 OS supports data tethering out-of-the-box, it just takes a little (very little) hackery to get it to work.

Find the updated iPhone 3G tethering hack here.

Back to top ▴