Android 2.2 to support WiFi tethering

Asavin Wattanajantra

Version 2.2 of Android will have built-in USB tethering so you can share a data connection with your laptop, and will also allow you to turn an Android phone into a portable WiFi hotspot.

This is in addition to the already announced full Flash support and speed improvements, great news for Android owners and which may make Apple iPhone users look upon it enviously.

USB tethering is where users can hook up their mobile phones to use them as modems, brining mobile data connectivity to devices such as laptops which they can connect to.

Mobile operators might be unhappy about this of course, as it means that users with no limit tariffs could stick their sim card into an Android device and take advantage of free connectivity.

It is not clear whether carriers will be able to disable the feature in 2.2, but as Android is open source it does seem very likely

There is also the question of whether handset manufacturers will even update Android phones as quickly as users perhaps want, compared to the pace that Google is developing at.

It appears that Apple has some work to do with the next version of the iPhone operating system, as well as becoming increasingly popular it’s doing well with adding features.