I have unlimited cellular data on my phone but not if I use it as a hotspot.

This is why we need net neutrality

This is one of those 'innovations' people mean when they say capitalism drives innovation. Not the hotspot, the pointless extra charge for something your phone can just do on its own.

How do they know if the source of data is hotspot? I'd imagine there is a way to stop your phone grassing on you.

What is the difference between cellular data being used on my phone and cellular data being used on my notebook?

The difference is the cellular company's profits amount.

I've had great success getting around these restrictions.

CalyxOS + Always on VPN (mullvad)

The secret sauce is using a Android version that allows you to share your VPN with hotspotting. I believe only calyxos and lineage allow you to do this. Since the VPN client is running on the phone, all the traffic that originates from the phone will look like phone data, with the appropriate time to live, OS fingerprinting, etc.

This can't be done on stock Android, because it does not allow the VPN to be shared over tethering. So tethering traffic will not getting capsulated on the VPN client. There's a security argument for this, but I prefer the user flexibility of allowing all the traffic to get VPNed.

It's still possible to do this without VPN sharing on the phone, you can use normal tethering on a unlocked phone, like stock Android. You just have to modify the traffic signature to look like whatever the carrier is looking for. Setting the appropriate time to live, using a VPN, and doing other OS fingerprinting tricks to keep the traffic consistent. It's much easier to use a ROM that lets you share the VPN

My ISP's a dick, but to my knowledge, unlimited has to mean unlimited around here. There where months where we had Problems with our fibre, so I did everything over a hotspot from my phone. Used 100's of GB's no one ever complained.

Get proper consumer protection laws, people.

Which is bullshit. Who cares if you download something at full speed on your phone or through the hotpot? A bit is a bit, doesn't matter where it ends up when received by the phone's modem.

If it's an android phone, enable dev mode, install adb on your laptop, run an sshd under termux on the phone, and you should be able to set up iptables to forward packets from the laptop through the phone. The phone won't know that it's being used for tethering. Although I hadn't seen the stuff about packet TTL before. Maybe it's as simple as just adjusting that.

Att et al keeps throwing around the word 'unlimited'. I actually had a conversation with Verizon, before I dropped them, and actually used this exact quote to the guy...

He was like, "princess bride. Nice. But, yeah, I have to read the script."

Well that's because, fuck you pay me those are special data packets.

Data is data in the same way water is water and electricity is electricity; nobody should have the power to dictate how you use it. I really wish we’d enshrine genuine net neutrality and shut this kind of nonsense down.

you also have unlimited data, unless you hit a data cap, and then you hit a data rate limit, so technically your data is actually limited.

Can we legislate these fucks to just actual provide the bandwidth they claim to? I.E. a max cap of the max bandwidth * the max amount of time it can be available for in a billing period. Anything else is fraud IMO.

It's a really weird and very American problem. Our home broadband either doesn't exist or is really expensive in any given market, and tends to have clauses, conditions, etc. Like Comcrap limiting people to 1TB/mon (very easy to burn through quickly by just watching some television programs) unless they pay more for "unlimited". People, as taught by Capitalism, hunt for the best deals. Paying one bill instead of two saves money. Some have light enough home Internet requirements that they don't need expensive home broadband.

Then the companies get pissed that we're doing what we are supposed to do, find the best deal for our needs, so they set up false gates to make sure we follow the path they want us to follow. Then they pay off the regulatory agencies to allow terms like "unlimited" mean not unlimited, 3G HSPA+ being known as 4G. 4G being known as LTE, 4GLTE or 5Ge. 5G being known as 5G, 5G+, 5GUW, 5GUC, (even though, with the exception of T-Mobile in many markets, that 5G will actually be non-standalone and anchored to an LTE packet core, not 5G SA) and all the other damn arbitrary marketing buzzwords. All of which really mean nothing because the 5G spec allows a carrier to flip on the 5G availability flag on a phone even if 5G doesn't exist in your market.

Most of this, AT&T is the biggest perpetrator of by far. Especially the lying about 5G.

The rules are all made up, nothing is real. Time for the arbitrary monthly bill increase for no reason! Pay up, chump!

Unlimited with a limit

You see, this is why we need net neutrality

EDIT: see, im glad someone else said it already

How can they tell if you are tethering?

Use a VPN. ISP are being disingenuous when they claim a data connection is unlimited at the point of purchase and then slug us with restrictions when we try and use it. If they can detect a tether, the VPN should obscure it.

How do they even know if you use your data as a hotspot? That's just ridiculous!

128kbps is only mildly better then dial up lmao

It's because at&t also sells home Internet. If you have unlimited hotspot, then you wouldn't want that sweet sweet DSL or whatever shit Internet ATT sells

max 128kbps

TMobile doesn't have a hard throttle, but they'll cut priority under congestion so that if wherever you are has someone else vying for the bandwidth, they get first shot.

Frankly, given that the limited resource is the cell bandwidth, that seems like a more reasonable way to go. It doesn't hurt them much if someone wants available bandwidth and there's no contention for it from others.

I'd have a lot of fun trying to get around it. For example, if the phone and the computer were on the same non-Internet-connected wifi network, and you set up an SSH server to send outbound requests through the 4G modem, would they be able to find out you're using the hotspot?

I used to root my phone and then could use the hotspot without my provider knowing.

They can detect you using your phone as hotspot? Creepy.

If you use a VPN it can also mask it too. That's how I used to get around it before moving to Google Fi.

Some or all major mobile providers outright BAN hotspots in their ToS. However, they don't enforce the rule as it would be very unpopular.

And we still have pretty much the most expensive cellular data in the EU. The triopoly sucks.

Your data is unlimited, the SPEED of the data is not. ;)

Plug it in via USB cable, shouldn't register as a hotspot then. At least that's how it works on linux, IDK about other OS.

I know this is going to sound like an ad. Visible has unlimited 5G, and 5Mbps* hotspot, for $25/mo. It's owned by Verizon.

Get Google fi if it's available. Very consumer friendly. Actually let me rephrase that. More consumer friendly than most other cell providers. But it's still Google.

At least all the pricing and features are straight forward and they don't lock any features (like Hotspot) behind paywalls.

I think companies call that "innovation" these days.

Thank you for putting this into words. Verizon does the same thing to me, I've been on the same plan for four or five years, and I haven't been able to articulate it the way you did. Thank you for explaining what's happening.

Around about 2009 or so I had a mobile plan with Virgin that did that same trick (I think this was plugging your phone in to a computer as a modem as opposed to wireless hotspot but same thing anyway) and it was limited to 5 MEGABYTES after which they wanted 15pence per KILOBYTE I couldn't believe what I was reading. I never ran afoul of it because I checked this out first when buying the plan and made sure never to use that function but it just seemed literally unreal. I've been shocked at how much things cost before but that seemed more like a mistake or something, I just can't imagine they ever actually made anyone pay for that, the negative press would be too bad. It was not unheard of at the time for people to have excess charges on limited plans waived because it was a shock and they were unaware or unprepared for those charges accruing so the idea that someone might have checked emails, read a news article, checked Facebook and possibly a web video having not read the fine print and ended up with tens if not over a hundred GBP of charges just doesn't seem feasible. Really fucking crazy.

Oops

Get a custom ROM and a VPN.

Try plugging your phone on via the USB instead of a WiFi hotspot. It may not detect it as a hotspot.

Basically they don't want you to turn your phone into a mobile router.

Get EasyTether for your phone ($10) and you can USB tether to any PC that has the companion app installed (free).

Even a Raspberry Pi works. I have a Pi configured to broadcast as a WiFi AP, so I just plug in my phone via USB and I have instant WiFi for all of my devices. Takes a fair amount of configuration to do that, but there are tutorials online. Much easier just plugging your phone into a laptop for internet on just that laptop.

Or maybe a laptop can act as a WiFi AP, too. I do know Windows can share internet out a free Ethernet port very easily.

I use a VPN so my wireless provider doesn't see Windows update or Stream downloads, etc.

Visible has an unlimited hotspot

I'm sure this is an unpopular opinion, but I kind of get this one. Unlimited data on your phone is constrained a bit because it's your phone. If you make your phone a hotspot and the whole family is using it to watch videos and stuff (and not paying for their own data plan), that's a pretty big difference to the infrastructure needs.

I remember when I had the original iPhone with jailbreak I was able to use it as a hotspot without the carrier restrictions. Guessing it’s the same way now that it is handled in the OS and phone makers have carrier agreements to separate the traffic so people don’t use as much of their service as they pay for.

TTLMaster was what I used to fix this a few years ago

I've been using SecureTether https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.panjava.internet.sharing.tethering.mobile.hotspot.secure.wifi.securetether to get around it. Requires a bit of setup but works without issues after.

I dont believe something like this is possible on iOS.

Every carrier has it's problems but AT&T and Verizon are a nickel and diming rip off. They suck.

I have been bypassing this with Pdanet app for over 10 years. I don't think the app gets regular updates anymore, but it has worked for me on many different phones, and windows versions. Also different carriers.

Doesn't have to be usb either, I use the wifi direct setting it has and have used 100gb in a month. With minimal or no slowdown.

I still use it almost daily, as fiber or any other form of internet isn't available in my area besides satellite (not talking about starlink). I also play online games usually 80 latency, which sucks, but better than nothing.

The difference is one hop. I think that’s how ISP’s measure it anyway. I’ll bet spoofing that number would bypass the restriction.

Or I’m hopelessly out of date.

At home i have a FWA over 5G (mobile) with 1Tb/month of traffic cap. That can be raised by 200Gb if needed. Cost 24€/month.

On mobile I have 150Gb capped 3G/4G/5G (whatever works) for 7.99€/month.

Not bad deals in comparison with what I read here.

Root your phone and you can manage which APN is used by tethering. If you can't do this consider trying a connecting to a VPN before enabling tethering, the connection will on some devices remain active on the normal APN because changing would disconnect the VPN and keeping connected is higher priority than updating the APN. Also USB tethering and WIFI tethering may behave differently.

In the end this is a good argument for better regulation. When you buy a car they don't get to extract more money from you because you drive out of state or use it for business. The fact that telecommunications companies have so much power and access to basically monitor what you are doing and bill accordingly is insane. You should pay for a service with a simple and clear contract and all this crap should be made illegal.

the reason is wireless network carve outs from network neutrality and them wanting to abuse their monopoly status to upcharge you for every little thing

I've read somewhere that USB tethering bypasses this very easily.

Companies even do this if you have a 5g modem.

There is a 2 hour window at the end of the month in which I am miserable.

I'm at the tip of the US's Wang and have zero access to wired internet, so I am stuck. 😞

I got hit by this AT&T usage cap for internet downloads. I went through 250GB of downloads in less than a month. Most of it was internet backups of a newly installed system. They don't offer a data tier without a cap in my area so I was stuck paying $10/10GB over that month. Next month I added a $30 unlimited data charge to my bill. That's OK as I'm consistently going over their cap again due to backups. Unless I buy much more expensive plan from a commercial provider and pay for Fibre installation, I'm stuck.

It’s to stop people from abusing unlimited data on their cellphone for all their WiFi devices at home. I know a person who did not have WiFi at home and only used their cellphone data. You are using more than a typical cellphone user and also you are cutting them from an opportunity to sell you a WiFi plan for your home. It’s annoying, but as I understand it, this is the reason.

yeah they are selling “wireless home internet” hard now, can’t have people using their phone hotspot for that.

This is why I love Google Fi. I go anywhere on earth, and I have coverage. Unlimited everything. Never worry about nothing, ever, and has carrier bonding for when you're really out there.

Do they actually slow it down? I have 8GB of data and many months I use a lot more than that and they send me some messages that they will slow it with some links to purchase more data but it never happens, or at least not in a noticeable way

Using a phone purchased through them or unlocked? Locked phones will have proprietary bullshit to check if you are using a hotspot

not to be a shill, but i have xfinity mobile, and they gave me unlimited tethering. there is service degradation at some point, but i haven't ever hit it or if i have i haven't noticed it.

AT&T are like:

https://youtu.be/DHgVRVeRNXM?feature=shared

get calyx

Laptops have large screens and windows software isn't designed to be data efficient. Unlimited data doesn't mean at full speed infinitely. They sell way more than they can support otherwise it would be impossible to support more than a few users at one time on a cell tower.