Samsung's Windows Phone 7 devices hide USB tethering
updated 03:40 pm EST, Thu November 11, 2010
Samsung WP7 devices have tethering loophole
Samsung's two launch-day Windows Phone 7 devices, the Focus and discovered code to enable USB modem tethering despite the lack of official Microsoft support. Dialing ##634# to get a diagnostic menu, followed by *#7284#, opens a "modem, tethered call" option that turns either phone into a makeshift 3G modem when plugged in through USB. Italy's HDBlog notes that Windows users at a minimum automatically see drivers install, implying that Samsung had loaded drivers of its own.
Microsoft has previously said that tethering would only come later to WP7 as it was focused on getting the first devices on the market, but the discovery hints either that it already has the basic code inside or else that Samsung had inserted features of its own. WP7 is supposed to have virtually no OS-level customization out of the box and would leave Samsung to mostly implementing app changes, but phones from Dell, HTC and LG don't exhibit the same behavior. [via Phone Arena]
