It’s my goddamn motherfucking mobile data and MY PHONE. I should be able to use it however I want. My wifi went down because the greedy, cunt-faced shitbags at Comcast stole taxpayer subsidies to enrich themselves instead of actually providing the service we’re paying for. I tried to switch to a mobile hotspot and my phone refuses to open one. Everyone responsible for this shit should be fed to alligators locked away in a fucking gulag. We have no rights and live in a corporate plutocracy.
Must be a USA thing, never heard of such a thing.
I know for a fact this is a thing in Japan.
Blows my mind too.
russian here, it’s the same shit
you can get around that by setting TTL to 65 on your pc tho
I hope they keep their shit overseas, don’t need it here.
Italian here, Vodafone did this thing to me and I switched to Illiad, never looking back
IIRC they outlawed it and Vodafone’s hotspot is now free as well.
It’s been like this in Canada for years. I’m not sure making our phones a wifi hotspot was ever free come to think of it.
Same here.
Is this a USA only thing?
USA mobile carriers have been charging for tethering since devices implemented the tethering feature. Android enforced it through carrier firmware. I don’t remember how apple enforced it.
I remember having to jailbreak all my iPhones so I could get it for free. As iOS started feeling more limited, I bought a galaxy phone from Europe because the international phones didn’t have the carrier firmware.
Then T-Mobile was the first big carrier to offer free tethering - I switched to them from AT&T. And now more carriers are offering free tethering because it’s losing them customers probably.
USA here, AT&T does not do this, tethering is included.
“Included”.
Imagine getting a steam deck and you’re out and about and you use your hotspot so you can play a game. Your game needs to be updated. Now imagine you have the $35 plan. You won’t even make it to playing your game before you get throttled to 128KB/s.
Hotspots are the new thing they’ve modeled the plans around. First it was minutes, then it was texting, then it was data, now it’s hotspots.
edit: I’ve been arguing about this with them for ages because we WERE on a grandfathered plan from when they bought out cingular. They got rid of our plan (Kicked us off said plan.) and these are the only 3 options they have left.
edit2: Forgot to mention. The rationale they give for this is that they “don’t want people using their cellular data to replace their home internet”.
That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
My carrier has been giving me weekly data packs since mid May, with a use-or-lose-it condition, so I have been actively not using my home connection and connecting everything I can remember to my phone’s hotspot.
The moment you pay/receive the bandwith, it’s yours to use as you understand; the network can’t interfere with its usage.
That is gross overreach.
That’s the way AT&T used to be with their minutes. They called it rollover. Now they basically do everything but tell you to fuck off.
Sounds like a murica problem. Maybe you’re getting too much freedom already?
We’re packed to the fucking gills with freedom. That’s why they need so much voter suppression: to maintain our heaps and heaps of freedom. /s
Happens when roaming abroad with some UK simcards too
Yeah, when roaming makes more sense.
Certified USA moment
Certified cringe internet moment
Your problem seems to be that you are residing in the U.S
I’m in the US and don’t have to pay to do this. They tried to charge for it like 10 years ago but I’ve never seen it attempted since.
Sounds like it’s OPs carrier.
When I was living in the UK 10 years ago, the 3 mobile company actually blocked anyone from tethering on their network, not sure if this is still the case. They had a banging unlimited data package that was very popular, but they realised pretty quickly that unlimited data + tethering was a recipe for financial ruin so they tightened the noose and stopped it.
This is only the case if you buy a phone from your carrier (that they’ve customized to disable hotspot without you paying extra) instead of from a phone manufacturer directly. Carriers doing that isn’t as common outside the US, but it’s not an inherently location-based thing. I’m in the US and (due to buying phones from the manufacturer) I can use mobile hotspot without paying any extra even though my carrier would normally require that.
I’m a little late, but I have an unlocked s20+, and I can’t use tethering either. I’ve tried on numerous networks. I have to use workarounds. From my research my phone is not the only one that has this issue. Apparently oneplus and google phones can do it though.
Not just living in the US. I’m thinking they’re on some legacy plan where just using mobile hotspots were extra.
On my kind of old t-mobile plan, I can use hotspot. And when I was a grandfathered Verizon plan I could use it too. Same with the MVNO I played around with a few months ago.
There are limits though, which is BS. But just using it to get through a temporary residential internet outage is included in a lot of plans in the US.
Is this an American thing I’m too European to understand.
Are you really paying to just activate wifi hotspot? How is thst justifiable by any means?
In the US, anything that can be sold, will be.
Except public restrooms. Fuck you, rest of planet Earth, we win! 🇺🇲🇺🇲 🖕🖕
I would rather pay for that because i don’t like my restrooms being peepable
Big Bathroom shill
How is any of the crap they and isps in general do justifiable? Charging overages for data?? I guess I missed the part where they have a big ol data tank they are supplying us from that might run dry… It’s all fucking horseshit. You either have the infrastructure to provide the speeds you’ve promised to every customer you’ve promised it to, or you don’t. Get out of my ass, Cox.
Not American, but funny enough from what I’ve seen, apparently it’s a thing. For my service it’s usually been assumed with no extra fees. But I bought an ESim for Europe and I did notice that while shopping around, probably 1/5 companies had mentioned something about no hotspot/tethering allowed without paying an extra fee.
Where I’m from our Teleco plans are truly shit but I guess we have that over the Americans.
Cuz 'merican vampires.
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In America, some carriers disable hotspot on the devices they sell and hold you hostage. There are many ways around this. The best way is to use OEM non carrier phones. Other options include pdanet and several other apps designed to bypass the carrier software locks. My graphene os hotspot works perfectly no matter what carrier I use
Edit: Oh, and you can forget it on iphones. Apple loves sucking carriers dicks and fucking you all over. They go out of their way to ensure the carriers are robbing you before allowing hotspot use
Yep, after finding out about Verizon locking bios I decided to never by direct from carrier again. Plus, these alternative OS options need support. I run GraphineOS, it was quick and easy, never had an issue.
But google probably has been working on making newer versions of android closed-sourced, especially for OEMS. I say probably because there isn’t any actual hardcore proof but imo the bios lock is just the start.
Thank you, I was wondering about that. I never had an issue using a hotspot with Vidéotron or Rogers in Québec, so this post was very confusing to me.
I have an iPhone through T-mobile and I don’t have to pay extra for my hotspot. Kinda hilarious, though, I only get 20 gigglebytes of high speed hotspot, which my 5g can blow through in as little as 3 minutes 45 seconds as of the latest speed test (712mbps). After that, it caps it at 600kbps. They have no problem with me using hundreds of gigglebytes directly on the phone, for some reason, I don’t see why they have to limit hotspot.
I didn’t know Apple also did this. That is ridiculous
Hotspot began as a paid feature. It only became free as carriers lost grip on the devices on their network.
Depends which country you’re talking about
You’re probably right. This was the case in the US and Canada.
Most of Europe (and even moreso the rest of the world) didn’t have serviceable mobile internet until years after US and Canada, so it makes sense that they missed the initial wave of hotspot premiums that North America suffered through.
And before any one tries to be snarky, yes Sweden rolled out 4G before anyone else, but it didn’t take off until well after NA already dominated the space.
I don’t think that’s a thing in Europe.
Not a thing in the US either. Not sure what dogshit carrier OP is using that is fucking them.
With T-Mobile in the States, usually you’re not paying extra, but you are capped on hotspot data, even if you have an unlimited data plan. Which is still kind of BS
Unlimited data doesn’t mean shit anyways, they cap you on your phone data as well after a certain point. Usually 20-30GBs for the month will put you into a throttled state for the rest of the month.
Definitely sounds like a USA specific issue. In Australia we pay for GBs data, it’s up to us what we use it on. I’d be appalled if they tried to pull that bullshit here.
Most carriers include ‘unlimited’ data, usually broken up in XXXGb at full speed, then unlimited data at much lower speeds.
They did pull that bullshit here though. Personal Hotspot on iOS was a paid extra feature in most cases when it first launched back in iOS 7 (can’t speak to the Android side of things personally), assuming you could get it at all. It didn’t become standard until later. It’s generally standard these days thankfully but it wasn’t always.
Basically the same here like I have 20GB at full speed and then slows down a lot. But at least Verizon requires a data plan with any smart phone. I’m only away from wifi maybe 4hrs a month, I only need call/text not data.
My understanding is call/text goes thru the internet now so they force the data plan.
Voice over LTE and WiFi calling.
I remember it definitely being a very common thing in USA a decade or so ago. I never knew it disappeared. I don’t think it would ever fly in Europe.
There used to be jailbreak tweaks in the iOS 4 days that would allow you to use it regardless of your carrier.
Isn’t a hotspot a hardware feature?
What is this comment section going on about it being a paid feature originally? How did people pay for software restricted hardware?!
Two ways a carrier can restrict this:
- If you buy the phone from your carrier, they can obviously restrict hardware functions that would otherwise be available on that phone.
- If they analyze your traffic, they can try to distinguish between mobile traffic and other traffic and attempt to block non-mobile traffic.
Isn’t the second point highly illegal?
No, and that’s why people want a net neutrality law.
Your phone uses a different APN for hotspot I think. They can also tell from the packets TTL sometimes.
So?
the second point feels highly suspect as most internet traffic is encrypted these days, and all ISPs could analyze is the domain you’re talking too, and the amount of traffic to each
- that’s terrible. Thank God India doesn’t have carrier locking.
- wtf.
You will own nothing and be oppressed.
Well thanks for that. Good morning to you too.
The hardware isn’t restricted, anymore at least. It’s usually restricted at the network level. The hotspot uses a different connection. I’ve been on plans where I can use hotspot, but it just redirects all traffic to a page telling me it’s not on my plan, or like on Visible where hotspot traffic is throttled to 5mbps. This also causes hotspot traffic not to go through a VPN if you tried.
Edit: if you’re rooted you can bypass this with VPN Hotspot which lets you pass your hotspot through whatever VPN is active
Damn. Orwell must be proud. Or crying.
What the fuck? Aussie here. Ive had a dozen phones, both locked to carrier and unlocked, and never been unable to turn on hotspot. Thats madness.
Telstra tried this for a bit but eventually gave up.
Yeah, iirc my iPhone 6 initially couldn’t do it, needed the phone company to enable it on their side (kogan, I think)
When we lost the first fight for net neutrality.
Since fucking always, at least with my phone on AT&T
Yea really I remember having to pay for service one of those like physical hotspots way back in like 2010ish.
Yeah, any carrier that sells a bespoke physical hotspot device would try to milk more money out of customers by disabling it on software in their phone’s ROM.
I haven’t renewed my student unlimited data plan since 2011. It lasted through a company merger and a pandemic. I’m never renewing my plan. My first born will inherit this plan when I die.
Which carrier is this?
I have a story that your comment reminded me of.
When I went to university I got my first phone contract. I got it through groupon which got it down to something like £10 a month, £150 cashback at the start of the contract and a free (shitty) phone. Hardly any minutes, tiny amount of data, but unlimited texts. I was locked in for 2 years, but it was still hard to see how they would make much money off me. Then I got my first bill and I knew they definitely wouldn’t make ANY money off me. They messed up the groupon discount and instead of being charged £10 a month they were actually charging me 43p. The phone I got with it died in a couple of months, so I bought another phone with the money they gave me and used that for a couple years until they got bought out. When that happened the new owners fixed the price 😢 I had a good run though!
