Smartphone: How much data do you use up per month?
- Thread starter Luxus
- Start date
Ernest L. Defoe
Well-known member
I use over 12GB+ a month. Constantly streaming music or video.
rainmotorsports
Well-known member
When I got my first Android phone, a Galaxy S2 on Sprint I was using upwards of 6GB per month. Part of that was near daily downloads of CyanogenMod Firmware at around 150 mb a piece. Towards the end of my contract I was down to 1 GB a month.
When I got my Nexus I was on a $30 a month 5GB plan from T-Mobile. It was survivable. But now that I am on the $60 a month Unlimited plan from MetroPCS (T-Mobile) I back up my phone to cloud storage daily and I can hit 25 GB a month.
When I got my Nexus I was on a $30 a month 5GB plan from T-Mobile. It was survivable. But now that I am on the $60 a month Unlimited plan from MetroPCS (T-Mobile) I back up my phone to cloud storage daily and I can hit 25 GB a month.
Holy cow. Here you pay T-Mobile $90 for just 5GB per month...
rainmotorsports
Well-known member
In the US anyways, there is a $30 a month plan it only has 100 minutes but unlimited texting and the 5GB of data. Those who don't make phone calls love it. T-Mobile has a unlimited plan for $80 a month here with 5GB of hotspot. The main difference with their MVNO MetroPCS is there is no tethering option at all, but thats what VPN's are for.
Could you elaborate on this please? I'm intrigued since I don't exactly want to pay extra just to tether my other devices to my phone's data.
rainmotorsports
Well-known member
Well technically you will end up paying one way or the other. I am sure there are some slow/limited free VPN's out there. You could always run one off a VPS which if you have one is likely your cheapest option. I personally use Private Tunnel. https://www.privatetunnel.com/index.php/price.html
I run it from the tethered device. You can use Private Tunnel directly on an Android device. However you can't out of the box tether that connection. It would require some linux network knowledge to get traffic working like that. So for my laptops its okay, running the Xbox... not gonna work.
Most tether blocking is just done on port 80, the monitoring is often a bit more comprehensive then that. It's easy to see the extra hop between the mobile device and the tethered device. But they don't block a lot of ports since the android device needs them. So for example TeamViewer works even with tethering blocked because it uses the same ports on android. The VPN gets away with the same concept. Except since all your traffic is encrypted and tunneled over a different port they really don't see or block it. In theory the VPN running on the device is better, but out of the box having it on the connected device (laptop) is easier.
They can still catch you and terminate your service. Being on a Prepaid plan i think I could care a little less about it. I also use only 1 or 2GB a month, ive had the 50GB Private Tunnel plan and its lasted me a year. I don't exactly abuse my tether.
EQnoble
Well-known member
They (some providers in the US) detect tethering based on the APN you are using.
The normal data APN and the tethering APN are two different access points and when you use vnc/teamviewer (or any other standard app) you are using the standard data APN, when you tether you use a tether APN (because most tether apps are crap that use built in mechanisms to create the tether) and data sent through there is usually not considered part of your data plan with tethering being like a second agreement with an ISP. Assuming nothing has changed you need to route traffic through your normal APN and keep your traffic masked (like using that vpn) or they will change your phone plan (they will add tethering and charge all of your tether traffic as usage on tethering even if you have unlimited data) without asking you.
Just a heads up if you live in the US.
rainmotorsports
Well-known member
Not sure that applies when using a non standard tethering app. You simply can't use built in tethering methods most of the time. I did use a hacked sprint tethering app a long time ago. With that I think it would be beyond obvious to them. But right now am using CyanogenMods core tethering feature which is an extension of the methods provided by Google but stripped out of carrier firmwares. I honestly wouldn't know though. Just not sure where the data for the APN would come from on an AOSP firmware versus stock with the stock app where its more obvious.
EQnoble
Well-known member
While I'm not talking android specifically (cyanogen unless you know something I don't about it, is a custom build of android right?) and am more so referencing network configuration (if you use tmobile lets say, you are using one of their APNs for a data connection regardless of what operating system you put on the device, if you don't have APN settings you don't have a connection, for instance http://www.wireless.att.com/support_static_files/KB/KB41477.html ) but what you say is precisely my point.
On an iphone, all the tethering apps have pretty much been removed from the store (I feel like that was a show of aggressively helping att cover losses on their $30 month unlimited data plan which many many thousands of people were grandfathered into) and even many of the choices for jailbreakers use standard methods to create the tether which is totally pointless. In fact I only know of one app for the iphone that actually allows you tether without you getting sniped. However, some ISPs are using a few different methods to track people tethering and they are vigilantly throwing up the coxblox against folks doing so usually in the form of an inflated bill (if you have multiple lines and are worth keeping as a customer).
I tried MyWii, or whatever it was called, off Cydia and yeah that was a hit or miss usually.
