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.
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.