Personal Hotspot

AT&T must be feeling the heat when it comes to the upcoming Verizon iPhone. Without exclusivity the wireless company will find itself competing for every last iPhone customer in the US. Verizon made waves when it announced that the CDMA iPhone would offer a personal hotspot for up to five Wi-Fi devices.

AT&T is set to follow suit and has announced that it's working with Apple to bring the feature to the iPhone with iOS 4.3. Developer beta versions of the next generation firmware have indicated the personal hotspot is indeed on its way.

Some AT&T iPhone customers were shocked to see that the Verizon iPhone includes a Wi-Fi hotspot for up to five devices. Now that Apple has released the latest developer beta of iOS 4.3, it looks like all iPhones will be getting the feature. According to a report in BGR, Personal Hotspot is listed right under Wi-Fi under the Settings menu.

AT&T has not stated whether or not they plan to support the feature. For its part, Verizon hasn't mentioned data plan pricing yet, or whether or not tethering will cost extra. The app featured on the Verizon iPhone is actually native to iOS 4.2.5, the firmware running on the Verizon iPhone.