Do you have an iPhone in Canada? If you do, then most likely you also are subscribed to a monthly data plan. Rogers debuted their 6GB/$30 data plan after iPhone 3G owners were disgusted with their original prices. If you’re lucky to have that plan–hold onto it.

What about iPad Pay As You Go data plans in Canada? We haven’t heard anything from the “Big 3″ telcos (Rogers, Bell, Telus) as of late. It seems they are waiting for each other (or waiting to work together??) to release their iPad data plans. The iPad is rumoured to be coming on April 24th in Canada–are you ready?

How to Tether your iPhone Data Plan to the iPad (and more!)

Steve Jobs responded to an email clearly stating (with the word “No.”) that the iPad will not be able to tether the iPhone’s data plan. That’s not quite true. If you have a jailbroken iPhone, keep on reading because you’re in luck!

There’s a 3rd party app in Cydia called MyWi that’s been heating up the interwebs. It will turn your iPhone into a wireless hotspot, allowing ANY device to connect to it. Just think of your iPhone as a wireless router for your iPad–now that is just short of awesome. Now that we know for sure the iPad can connect to MyWi, let’s shed some more light on this app.

MyWi is not free–it’s going to cost you $9.95. However, it’s definitely worth it to be able to tether your iPhone data plan to your iPad. Forget paying for a PAYG data plan when you’re within Canada!

Features:
- Create WiFi Hotspot to connect mutiple laptops or mobile devices to share your iPhone’s internet connection
- 40 bit and 104 bit WEP Security to prevent others from accessing your WiFi HotSpot
- Ability to enable USB and Bluetooth Tethering on your iPhone as well
- Broadcasts the Network Name (SSID) – no need to fuss with creating an adhoc network on your laptop
- Uses less battery and much faster then PdaNet due to native routing
- Shows up and down bandwith usage

Here’s how to download and setup MyWi on your iPhone:

1. Requires a jailbroken iPhone. Check out our guide from sister site iPhoneinCanada.ca.
2. Search Cydia for “MyWi (No Rock)”. Purchase it for $9.95 (they accept PayPal).
3. Install it, follow the prompts (will require resprings and agreeing to some terms).
4. Setup MyWi on the iPhone and enable WiFi Tethering.
5. Get your iPad and connect to your desired network
6. VOILA! You are now tethering your iPhone data plan to the iPad. Victory tastes sweet.

So far, MyWi has worked with some decent speeds. One issue is that it will drain your battery faster than normal, so I would recommend having a portable battery backup source nearby. Other than that, it’s a great little app that will make all iPad owners extremely happy. You will no longer need to purchase a 3G iPad (unless you absolutely need to) plus you’ll save on extra data costs. Me like MyWi.

Let me know how MyWi works out for you in the comments!

*edit* Speedtests added at the request of iPadinCanada.ca reader Gtasscarlo

First test is iPad using Shaw Cable. The next is a list of speeds acquired through MyWi tethering (I ran the test 4 times):

Posted under: Jailbreaking, Recommendations, Tutorials