It doesn't work out of the box.
You need to 1st root, then use something like Titanium Backup Pro (paid app) to freeze Tethering Manager.
Then it works. I've used it for very brief periods today and yesterday without any problems, but the phone is only 2 days old and I don't use it to tether laptops or for large amounts of data. Typically I only use it with another Android device that needs internet access if it doesn't have it at the moment, so my usage pattern would not be any different than any other phone user's.
Edit: oops the above is for Samsung Exhibit II 4g (I don't know about the first version)
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