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Must be a USA thing, never heard of such a thing.
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.
It is important for context to understand that this should only apply to unlimited data plans. Conceptually it is because there is limited spectrum available to consumers overall which limits bandwidth. Financially, they should not do this to anyone who is paying per gigabyte for their data plan. It's your data that you paid for. That has not stopped them from trying. If it is unlimited, it simply stops abusers from running an entire household off of spectrum that everyone has to share.
As per usual, the truth is lost in the nuance.
Under my current plan I get unlimited data and 10GB free tethering.
I get 5gb of tethering included on T-Mobile with an "unlimited" plan. I already have an app that routes the traffic through my VPN so only used a few MB for when I forgot to turn on the forwarding.
What app is that? I have 10gb tethering on my phone and would love to do that
VPN Hotspot on Fdroid. Its overly complicated, has not been updated for 2 years, and requires root but it works for me.
Carrier only detects traffic if I run it wrong.
No it's not just an American thing. On my carrier I can have unlimited data all I want but hotspot is limited to 5GB/month and I have to pay for more or it goes down to 512Kbps basically unusable.
But, but, but... this is Lemmy. I thought it wasn't legal to say anything here that implies America is not the sole evil in this world?
Used to be a thing with O2 here in the UK. My iPhone 3G (so, 2009?) was affected so I had to install an app that allowed me to tether.
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.
Iliad master race
USA here, AT&T does not do this, tethering is included.
Sort of. The plans we've had from at&t for the last 5 years included only 15gb of hotspot usage along with unlimited mobile data.
Seems like a fair amount of hotspot data except we live in the sticks and mobile has been the only Internet option.
On the upside were weeks away from gig speed fiber being installed to the house.
I was about to say maybe look at the newer satellite tech, but that's way better!
Satellite Internet is shit. Even the musk one of us actually any faster needs to fail simply because he would profit from it, and he deserves just nothing but depression.
Don't assume that's when it will be available. We had the fiber line dug in through our neighborhood back in March, but they're still laying it in other areas nearby, and apparently they are waiting to turn it on until they're done with all of it, which is supposed to be done sometime this fall, according to the original plan announced before they started any of it, sometime last year. If there's been any delays since then I guess I'm stuck waiting longer.
And since I'm stuck at home due to a major medical issue (hopefully should only be a problem for another year or so), once it does become available I will still have to convince my parents that ditching our cable connection and using online streaming to get all their channels and ad free streaming of anything not currently broadcasting along with Internet that's literally 40x faster than what we have here now while AT THE SAME TIME saving like $80-$90 per month is worth it. Mom in particular is so hesitant to have to learn anything different that I think she'd rather still pay the higher amount just because she's used to it.
We've had the fiber trunk line run through the back yard for 6 months or so. Luckily they have called and installs are running 4 to 6 weeks out at the time they called.
Feel very lucky fiber is even go an option. We are a good 3 miles from the closest town of 25 or so houses and 20 miles from the nearest city where the fiber originates from. It's a joint venture with a small company and our electric utility.
"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.
I'm in the US. I remember being told it was a thing on Verizon. But I've used my mobile hotspot many times and never had an issue.
Us vzw customers are almost all on some version of an "unlimited" package now, which includes hotspotting. If you had one of the lower valued plans, hotspotting can still be expensive. Hitspotting can still push you over your "unlimited" data allowance however, at which point your traffic gets deprioritized aka slow af.
Definitely a USA thing since Comcast were mentioned.
Here in New Zealand I have a friend who uses his Mobile hotspot to connect his Xbox to it to play games online at no extra cost from the mobile provider.
Doesn't that introduce lag? I remember testing mobile vs wired fibre, it's about an extra 100ms lag.
I thought it would but surprisingly he seems to get into matches with a latency of about 80ms which isn't too bad honestly.
It still makes me laugh though.
Same.
I know for a fact this is a thing in Japan.
Blows my mind too.
I hope they keep their shit overseas, don’t need it here.
russian here, it's the same shit
you can get around that by setting TTL to 65 on your pc tho
A few mobile plans offered by Telcos here in New Zealand used to have this as well, not sure if they still do
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.