Comment by bananas | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bananas | Hacker News Reader

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Interesting!

I'm on a Moto G on giffgaff in the UK and data is 100% free and unlimited (within some vague definition of "fair use"). They shoot your network access for 30 minutes if they find you tethering because it's against their terms.

How they detect this is a closely guarded secret and a big mystery. Perhaps this is it.

However, the asshole carrier tactics come out pretty sharpish: if you want a tablet SIM or data only SIM, they charge a fortune for a capped data SIM (£12 for 3Gb/month). No thanks!

Data is data. that's what net neutrality is about isn't it?

The penalty for breaking the terms is temporary disconnection so screw it, I tether all the time. If you use HTTPS only or a VPN connection then it doesn't cut you off at all. DPI anyone?

The irony is that I've snagged a 3.5Gb ISO image off MSDN onto my handset's USB OTG (at a nice 800k/sec) with the free data and can push 6-8Gb a month which doesn't apparently bother their fair use term but if I start up a download on a tethered device, bang instantly.

Obviously they're device-ist!

My understanding is that they rely primarily on the IP packet TTL. If you're tethering, each packet will have a TTL one lower than if the phone was the originating node.

I know that at one points some carriers used DPI to check for patterns that indicate non-mobile use (connections to things like Windows Update, for instance).

> How they detect this is a closely guarded secret and a big mystery.

I would guess packet inspection and checking user agents. You could bypass it with an iptables rule on the handset (is there iptables available on Android?) and/or changing your browser's user agent string.

That's just a theory, I wanted to test it but never find the time.

Yes for me, I have iptables v1.4.11.1, 2008-08-01.

yes iptablesis on android but our most likely need root to update it

When I moved house last year, we didn't have broadband at home for a few weeks. Coincidentally I got a new phone on Vodafone (on contract - S3 Mini on £21/mo plan), with three months' unlimited data. I tethered the shit out of it, including work-from-home; many gigabytes downloaded. Not a squeak from Vodafone. So YMMV.

I'm on EE and tether all the time (Windows phone). I don't always look but out of the few times I have my max was just under 8 Gb. Granted, I'm on a pretty pricey plan.

A really good tethering plan is one of the main reasons I've stayed with Three UK for so long. £20.50 (with a £4.50 retentions discount) for SIM-only 12mo with unlimited tethering, plenty of minutes and texts.

I'm regularly >20GB, more when I travel.

Watch out Three have changed this in the last couple of months. The old "one plan" gave you unlimited tethered data, the new one is 2GB of tethered data. I suspect too many people were going wire free and hammering the network.

Most months I barely beat 1-2GB but when I'm working on site it can be 20GB which means I may end up stuck on an overpriced "with phone" contract and may have to buy unlocked devices again. I'll have to see what the exact details are in a few months time.

I can't find an official word from Three about this, but I think this doesn't apply to existing plan holders.

I've done about 50GB/mo tethering last month and this with no ill effects yet. I'll be holding on tight to this plan for as long as possible, although as I'm on the rolling, 1-month contract version I suppose there's nothing stopping them from shifting me to a different plan apart from good will.

funnily enough I am going to switch over to giffgaff for just this purpose. Have you found that you can tether just fine over VPN? You find GG generally alright? As is noted below GG are probably checking ttl, but from what I hear there are ways around this too.

It seems to work ok over a PPTP VPN for RDP purposes. Not sure if our remote end forces a different MTU or not. I remember someone doing some work on this to get Vodafone to not drop the connection.

I haven't tried it past that much. I can whip an OTG keyboard/mouse into the thing and use it as an ssh terminal for the interesting bits with connectbot so don't need the tether facility. My ThinkPad has a 3G modem in it which I don't use any more - it was on Vodafone.

GG are pretty good. They went down a couple of times in the last couple of years for a few hours but comms were pretty good about it. Never had any other problems with them. Data bandwidth and latency is pretty good on 3G (HSPA+). I've pulled a huge amount of data in a month without a problem. Calls are reliable and clear and you can crank up and down your free bits every month.

To be honest I probably wouldn't ever hit another PAYG or contract provider again.

I just buy SIM free handsets now on a whim, use them for a year, sell them if they're ok or repair them away if I break them at cost. Up £400-500 a year on my old O2 contract.

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