Given the high cost of air cards, laptop users everywhere are turning to tethering applications in order to take advantage of the internet connections provided by their mobile phones. Although many mobile operators don't support tethering, ingenious developers have found ways to get around those restrictions. Thanks to their efforts, we now have tools like PdaNet, a tethering application for Palm, Windows Mobile, and iPhone. But what about the newly released Android phone? Can it be tethered, too? As it turns out, that answer is yes.

The GoogleAndBlog points us to a page belonging to Android developer, Graham Stewart, a 28-year-old from Boulder, Colorado. On his site, he has posted the full set of instructions for tethering an Android phone. The steps work for phones running on T-Mobile, the only mobile operator to currently offer Android devices for sale.

The app he provides isn't really an app in the traditional sense. He explains that the app only provides web access, so you can't use it as a general purpose internet tool. We're OK with that, though - surfing the web is what we care about. However, he does note that he thinks it can be used to tunnel SSH and VPN traffic, but he hasn't tried to do so just yet.

Before you attempt to use this app yourself, be warned: this is a highly experimental proxy application and it does require some technical experience to install.

How To Install The Android Tethering Application:

1. Install the app on your android phone, by clicking here (from your Android phone's web browser). You might have to change your settings to permit apps that don't come from the Google Market by going to your home screen and choosing MENU > Settings > Applications > Unknown Sources.
2. Turn USB debugging on on your phone: On your G1 go to the home screen, press MENU > Settings > Applications > Development, then enable USB debugging.
3. Follow the instructions here to install the Android driver - you'll need to do this on Windows & Linux but apparently not on the Mac.
4. Download and install the Android SDK for your computer platform. Alternatively if you are on Windows and don't want a 100 meg download, just get the ADB utility from here.
5. Plug your phone into your computer.
6. Choose Proxy App from your phone's menu.
7. Press the "Start Proxy" button on your phone.
8. Change to the directory that has the adb utility, using inside the SDK Tools folder and run:

   Windows: adb forward tcp:8080 localabstract:Proxy
   Linux/Mac: ./adb forward tcp:8080 localabstract:Proxy

9. Now you should have a proxy server running on port 8080 of your own computer that will relay the information over the Android Debug Bridge to the Proxy App which will relay it on to the Internet.
10. Set your Firefox proxy : Options > Advanced > Network > Manual Proxy Configuration

    HTTP Proxy: localhost
    Port: 8080

    Leave the others blank
11. You should now have internet connectivity.
12. Remember to disable your proxy settings in Firefox if you want to stop using your phone.

Clearly, the instructions above are not for the faint of heart, so we hope they only the prelude to a more user-friendly version of an Android tethering application which would allow anyone, even those less technically inclined, to take advantage of their mobile phone's internet connection. Only time will tell if T-Mobile breaks out their kill switch to shut off this application. In the meantime, enjoy!

Image Credit: GoogleAndBlog