How do I tether my BlackBerry to my laptop?
"How do I tether my BlackBerry to my laptop so that I can use my BlackBerry data plan to connect to the Internet on my laptop."
Cell phone carriers have made tethering laptops to a BlackBerry varying degrees of hassle, because they don't really want you to use their data network unless you pay for a laptop data plan. As long as you can install an app on your BlackBerry, you can get around this hassle with the help of a really great app for both Mac and Windows users.
The easiest way to tether your laptop to a BlackBerry is to use an app appropriately named Tether. The app isn't free, but compared to the cost of getting a separate data plan for your laptop, it pays for itself very quickly.
Download and install Tether to start tethering your laptop with your BlackBerry.
Once you purchase the app and install it on your BlackBerry and your computer, the rest is easy. You simply need to connect your BlackBerry to your laptop via USB, open the app, and follow the onscreen instructions to connect. You can also connect via Bluetooth, but in my experience tethering over Bluetooth tends to drain your BlackBerry battery quickly so use USB when possible.
Some things to keep in mind are that even though your cell phone provider may say you have unlimited data for your BlackBerry, unlimited may mean 5GB or less. If you are using a Mac, the USB connection won't work if you have Mac BlackBerry Desktop Manager installed. If you use Mac BlackBerry Desktop Manager, you will need to use Bluetooth to connect via Tether. Windows does not have this limitation.
If you are a Verizon or Sprint customer, getting a phone call while using the data tethering will temporarily interrupt the tethering in some cases.
Download Tether to make BlackBerry tethering easy.