How to Enable Tethering on a Nokia Lumia 520 Previously Locked to AT&T
I think I may have finally stumbled on the formula for this, enabling Tethering on a Nokia Lumia 520 that was previously locked to AT&T. Prior to these steps, you would not be allowed to enable tethering on your device even if you weren’t using AT&T!
In any case, I would love your feedback. Please leave comments letting me know if this worked or not.
- Unlocking your Nokia Lumia 520. There are plenty of sites that claim to do this and the cost is only a few dollars. I’m not linking to any such place, but I trust your Google skills.
- Install an app called Access Point. You cannot load it in the US Windows Phone store, but you can download it and manually sideload the app. Once properly installed, it will show up in the Settings part of Windows Phone.
- In Settings > System > Cellular, tap “Edit Internet APN” and click the Trash icon to delete the APN settings. I believe this ends up being the most critical step.
- Now in Settings > System > Access Point, define the appropriate APN settings for your carrier of choice or use the ones detected by the Access Point app.
Once you’ve done this, it should then be possible to enable Internet Tethering by going to Settings > System > Internet Sharing without getting the “contact AT&T to enable tethering” message.
Note: This hack only lets you change the APN used for tethering from AT&Ts default settings. The phone still queries a database of provider/APN combinations and won’t allow tethering on some combinations. For example, my AT&T Data SIM from a USB Modem that supports the “broadband” APN works in my Lumia 520 whereas my voice SIM that only supports only the “phone” APN will not allow tethering.
