Demios

@surgex You are being dense. Which is not shocking. Several posters here are dense. Adroid IS an open platform per Google. You can take it and do whatever you want with it. If a carrier does not want tethering, the handset maker does not include it. THAT has nothing to do with Android.
On your subject of hacked firmware. Google supports that open heatedly it is in the nature of being open. What they do not support is the inclusion of closed software (Market, Gmail etc) that carriers pay money for to have on their phones.
For the record, there are apps to modify your UI, enable tethering without root. Research a bit before you speak. The open nature of the android platform is not at question here. Your phone carriers are the one at question. You mentioned international phones having tethering by default. Of course they can! Those guys pay an arm and a leg for data and sms. It's a money making ploy for their carriers.

I refuse to get excited till I see the specs.

@(Unverified) I own two G1 phones. I test my apps on both, one is rooted and runs custom firmware, the others is vanilla. I was contemplating rooting my vanilla one to add maps to it.

I was about to root my G1 when I noticed a maps update. Dohohoho

Why yes, indeed my phone and my network can do that, without dropping my calls. Can your phone and your NETWORK do that?

Same dated qual proc and hw. When the heck am I going to be able to get an android phone with a hardware keyboard that is actually an upgrade?

Reading this made my sickeningly happy.

My G1 is starting to look a lot like an iphone...

Mr. LaForge, engage!

I WANT TO BE ON THE RECEIVING END!