I just about lost my coffee reading this:

AT&T says the carrier will offer MMS by mid-July with tethering to follow about two weeks later, according to Appmodo. But here's the catch: the tethering will run you $55 per month. Previous estimates around the Web had put AT&T's iPhone tethering cost around $70.

So on top of the $30 data plan and extra $55, or the data plan goes to $55? If it's the former, it's just itterly ridiculous - there's no way sane people would pay that. Upping the data plan to $55 is less egregious, but still more than it should be. Better to just rely on the iPhone browser and hunt down a hotspot.

Expanding on the hotspot idea: the most likely place I'd want to use tethering would be at an airport or hotel that charged a hefty daily fee (or hourly, in the case of airports) for WiFi. But let's ponder that - say $9.99 per hour for WiFi, and say I was a really heavy traveler, where I was buying that once a week. That's $500 per year (assuming 50 work weeks) - compared to $660 a year for the ATT plan.

Are they insane?

Technorati Tags: iPhone, ATT, stupidity