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Comment by dhawalhs | Hacker News Reader

If you get a unlocked Nexus 4 from the Play store, then you don't have to pay extra for tethering. 30$ means 30$, there is no additional fees, taxes etc. Thats the benefit of prepaid plans, you know exactly how much you are paying.

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On my pre-paid plan they assured me that tethering is absolutely fine. They give you 5GB and you use it how you like. I had a long discussion with a well-versed rep at a store on this issue and they were very forthcoming with it. You can go through 5GB pretty quickly on tethering and you end up on 2G speeds the rest of the month either way it doesn't matter to them.

that's not really true, T-Mobile blocks tethering by sniffing HTTP user agent strings too. So if you are tethering to a tablet, then it will work fine. It won't if you are tethering to a laptop (you can spoof the UA string but you will end up receiving all mobile websites on your laptop - which kind of sucks and kills productivity).

re all the other 'not me's here:

I had no problem for about two months of almost daily use (train commute), then I started getting my HTTP browser pages redirected to a tethering upsell page. HTTPS still worked, as did e.g. imap, dropbox, skype, etc, but I haven't personally played with it enough to find out if it seems to just be the user agent. The HTTPS-everywhere extension will probably help significantly with this, if you're looking to evade, if that's all they're doing.

makes me wonder, is there even anything else that they can do to block tethering apart from UA sniffing? given that the phone is unlocked and doesn't have any carrier's crapware in it.

Definitely. Since it's part of the contract that tethering isn't allowed, and (I assume, don't remember) that they can 'terminate service' for anyone at any time for any reason, they could: watch the pattern of traffic to identify well-known desktop apps, completely disconnect the worst 0.1% of offenders on the (very likely) assumption that they're guilty, and demand they pay up. Even a VPN won't hide you there, unless you have something that defeats traffic analysis (a definite possibility, but not a normal tool either, afaik).

I'm using my nexus 4 to tether my laptop almost daily with no issues in Seattle.

Hmm, Mine is a nexus 4 too. May be it happens because i'm on a plan with contract (even though the device wasn't bought on contract).

I don't doubt you're wrong but I've been tethering my galaxy nexus with the exact same plan he mentions with no issues what so ever. I sometimes have 2-3 devices connected to my phone.

Thank goodness for VPNs.

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