In an interview with blogger Michael Arrington at the Web 2.0 Summit, AT&T Mobility President and CEO Ralph De La Vega said his company is working with Apple Inc. to come up with a way for iPhone owners to use the device as an ad hoc cellular modem to connect their laptops to the Web while they're on the road.

"Tethering" an iPhone to a laptop, and using the iPhone's mobile data connection to get online, is a service that iPhone users have wanted for some time but that AT&T was reluctant to provide, perhaps because it feared that a huge influx of traffic could overwhelm its network.

De La Vega's comments come just a couple of months after Apple CEO Steve Jobs told a user that the company was "discussing" tethering options with AT&T.

The iPhone 3G has been a turning point for AT&T. The company got some flak for the $900 million in iPhone related costs it reported in the last quarter, which included customer acquisition costs, marketing, network upgrades and subsidy payments to Apple.

But de la Vega said while the phone will require some upfront payments for AT&T, it will prove lucrative over the life of the two-year iPhone contracts. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t reveal anything regarding pricing information, but it wouldn't come as a shock if AT&T decided to charge an extra $20-$35 per month. AT&T already charges BlackBerry users an extra $30 on top of their regular data plans if they want to tether their devices.

De la Vega also says there's a lot of experimentation and testing going on in AT&T's labs to integrate the iPhone with AT&T's fiber optic-based IPTV service, U-Verse. The iPhone will become a remote control for the service, a scenario in which you'll use the device.