Carriers Will Be Able To Decide Which Android Phones Have Tethering (And They Can Charge For It)

Today during its keynote at I/O, Google officially announced that the latest version of Android, called Froyo, will feature tethering and wireless hotspot functionality — a big win for Android users. When we broke the news last week we questioned whether or not carriers would be able to disable or charge more for this functionality given that it was baked into the default Android OS. Unfortunately, at least as far as consumers are concerned, it sounds like carriers will get their say. In other words, expect at least some carriers to charge more for tethering. I asked Hiroshi Lockheimer, who heads up engineering on Android, about the issue and the answer was confusing to say the least.