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.

  • ElPussyKangaroo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    351·
    11 months ago

    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?!

    • paintbucketholder@lemmy.worldEnglish
      27·
      11 months ago

      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.
    • jetsetdorito@lemm.eeEnglish
      121·
      11 months ago

      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