Unbelievable : Android (Froyo) on the Samsung Galaxy Tab doesn't "tether" ?...
 

These days I've been playing with a Samsung Galaxy Tab I have "on loan". This is my first contact with Android (Froyo 2.2).

There have been many good and bad surprises, but one in particular leaves me speechless...

The tablet works fine on Wifi at home, but of course I don't have a second SIM card (data plan) to test it on 3G. So I thought, no sweat, I'll just tether it to my N900 and give it a go...

Well, I've searched high and low on various Android forums (some good, some bad :-), and unbelievably, it just appears to be... simply *not possible*, not through USB, and not through Bluetooth !

WTF ? I must have been using Maemo for too long :-)

Re: Unbelievable : Android doesn't "tether" ?...
 

I'm not sure I understand, are you using mobile hotspot on the n900 for the tab to connect to it? That should work fine. If you are trying to use the n900 as a 3g modem, that is not going to work.

Re: Unbelievable : Android doesn't "tether" ?...
 

I had no problem to use Bluetooth tethering between an Archos 70 (almost identical to a Samsung Galaxy Tab) and my N900. However, Ad-hoc WiFi is such a major PITA that I gave up completely.

Re: Unbelievable : Android doesn't "tether" ?...
 

I don't count Wifi (ad hoc or otherwise) as tethering, strictly speaking -- although I know everyone uses the word as they please nowadays, which accounts for much of the confusion in those forums topics :-)

As Ayle said, I was referring to the classic notion of USB or Bluetooth DUN, ie using the phone as a modem indeed. Like I did with past and present phones, my various Maemo tablets, my Windows & Linux notebooks, etc.

And yes, I now understand it is deemed "not possible" with Android. I just can't believe it, is all :-)

Re: Unbelievable : Android doesn't "tether" ?...
 

I think only Symbian and Maemo can do that.

Re: Unbelievable : Android doesn't "tether" ?...
 

windows mobile also had that function. Since android is pretty open when it comes to expansion possibilities when it comes to what you can connect to it, I suppose that eventually someone will come up with something to do that.

Re: Unbelievable : Android doesn't "tether" ?...
 

I can use USB "tethering" on my Galaxy S ... which is a Galaxy Tab sans the extra pixels/size.

Re: Unbelievable : Android doesn't "tether" ?...
 

I recently got an Android wifi only Xoom working tethered to my N900. My first ideas (Wifi, DUN) didn't pan out, but I was able to get PAN to, err, pan out.

I used a modified version of the tarball on this page:

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=58570&page=13

Modified to use different IPs and interfaces due to my slightly more complex desires.

Re: Unbelievable : Android doesn't "tether" ?...
 

Here... let me help you...

For the Xoom tablet owners amongst you--Bluetooth tether is already baked into Honeycomb:
http://www.droid-life.com/2011/03/01...riginal-droid/
http://www.droid-life.com/2011/02/28...-to-a-droid-x/

For the Samsung Galaxy Tab... well, I don't like this solution but it supposedly works. I wouldn't do it, personally. You've been forewarned:
http://www.droidforums.net/forum/sam...ab-solved.html
...or, for the easier method:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=754961
...aaaaand video of it working:
http://www.droidforums.net/forum/sam...ml#post1001480
(The one thing I would do differently than this video shows--is that I would have renamed or copied the OLD WPA supplicant before pasting the new one in... I wouldn't trust just overwriting anything without keeping the original, just in case.) Here's a better write-up with the video--just in case I didn't give you enough already:
http://www.droid-life.com/2010/11/17...ng-galaxy-tab/

Re: Unbelievable : Android doesn't "tether" ?...
 

Thanks Dan, but of course I had seen all those links & "solutions" in the course of my research. I mentioned earlier in the thread that Wifi (ad hoc or not) was not the tethering method I was after. As you say, not something I'd try myself :-)