Droid will allow tethering, Verizon says

Verizon says the Motorola Droid smartphone can be used as a portable modem. The cost? About $30 per month.

By Matthew Shaer | 11.05.09

After weeks of anticipation, Verizon is slated to officially release the Droid on Friday morning. The Droid smartphone, which is manufactured by Motorola and powered by Google’s Android 2.0 operating system, will retail for $199, with a two-year contract and a mail-in rebate. To celebrate the Droid release, Verizon is airing a new commercial, billing the Droid as next-generation ’stealth’ technology.

So far, so good. But what about tethering? Even as the hype surrounding the Droid has reached a fever pitch, many tech bloggers have wondered if the Droid was tether-ready. (Instant primer: Tethering is the use of one web-connected device to hook-up another device to the Internet. The iPhone, for instance, is capable of tethering a laptop.)

Now we have an answer.

According to Network World, Verizon has confirmed that Motorola Droid owners will be able to use their phones to tether. The only stipulation: the tethering comes at a price. What kind of price? Around $30 a month, Verizon says.

Of course, as we noted earlier today, the Motorola Droid isn’t the only Droid in town. The HTC Droid, which will also be sold by Verizon, will reportedly get a price tag of $100, less than half the cost of the Motorola Droid. Among the features on the HTC Droid are a Qualcomm MSM 7600 528MHz processor, a 5.0 megapixel auto focus camera, and a 3.2 inch 320×480 HVGA capacitive touch screen.

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