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Windows Phone 7 has tethering support, up to carriers whether to enable it

Sound familiar? For Windows Phone 7, seems like Microsoft's taking an angle shared by both Apple and Google on a feature that enjoys a tenuous relationship at best with network operators, saying that data tethering will be available but it'll be up to carriers to decide whether to offer it. Though feature removal rarely goes over well with potential buyers of Windows Phone 7 devices, it's actually a pretty easy call from Microsoft's perspective: the company needs as much carrier support as it can get right now to ramp up a fresh mobile platform going against entrenched giants with several years' head start, and enforcing the availability of a feature that tends to choke 3G networks probably wouldn't be a great way to get that. Needless to say, we've little doubt that the dev community will find a way around any roadblocks in short order -- but officially, anyhow, the ball is in the operators' courts.