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The title pretty much sums up my inquiry. I am trying to determine whether or not I can use an AT&T laptop aircard and connect to the internet using the unlimited Media Max data plan.
I'm currently using my Tytn as a $10 /month Family Plan add-on with a $20 /month Media Max data plan for unlimited internet. If I were to activate another sim card with the exact same package, would I be able to insert it into an aircard and use it in my laptop for the same total price of $30 as well?
MOD EDIT: message deleted
1. Don't be a jerk. People help on this forum for free, and they're not going to help if they get treated like crap. You also asked a question that's not really under the scope of the board which is why there was such a delay in the responses.
2. I suggest you go over to the Cingular forums or another site that has more experience with the device you happen to be using, this is a forum for HTC devices, not laptop cards.
Lancealot said:
you can all suck my *****!
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1st warning Lancealot. Next time you've got yourself banned.
By the way, no one here is obligated to answer anything or help anyone. It's a volunteer forum. Grow up and have a little patience, please.
Thumbs up!
Thanks for the helpful replies.
I've found the answer on my own.
I went to an AT&T store and while the people there tried to tell me that it is not possible to take a cell phone sim card with a $20 Media Max data plan and use it with an aircard, I discovered the contrary.
Any sim card from any cell phone can be used with an aircard to gain internet access. The only difference is that when you pay for a particular service, you don't get charged per kilobyte for internet data usage fees.
When using an aircard with a $60 /month laptop connect fee, you get full access to the internet - this being the ISP.CINGULAR access point with no firewall and a dedicated IP address with full access to just about any port of your choosing. The same goes for the $40 PDA connect plan which is virtually identical.
However if you have a Media Max plan and use the WAP.CINGULAR, you will find that you have a more limited internet access behind a service similar to NAT or a firewall.
I found that by configuring the AT&T aircard in the store's computer using the AT&T communication manager to connect with wap.cingular instead of isp.cingular, the access granted as well as the speeds were nearly identical.
In conclusion, when an AT&T account is configured for a $10 /month add-on to a family plan + $20 /month Media Max bundle (with 200 text messages) you get a $30 package that is just as effective to the average layman as a $40 pda connect or a $60 laptop connect plan.
Though the laptop card is currently free after rebates, it seems to me to be much wiser to just buy the 3g phone, data cable and internet connection software to tether the phone than to pay so much more per month for a card that has none of the features of a phone.
Again, thank you all for your help, time and patience and have a great day!
Lance a lot
I don't know if this is the appropriate place for this..
anyway I have an HTC Fuze. I just got off the phone with ATT and had my data enabled. I got the 30 dollar unlimited messaging and data plan. does this only apply to some media max garbage, or can I use Opera and browse the web without getting charged rediculiously
It is unlimited. You can download and use the internet as much as you want, and to your content. There are 2 different versions of the internet on ATT.
The $15 MEdia Net for "dumb" phones, that has limited internet.
The $30 PDA Unlimited Plan that has unlimited/full internet.
amarpatel said:
I don't know if this is the appropriate place for this..
anyway I have an HTC Fuze. I just got off the phone with ATT and had my data enabled. I got the 30 dollar unlimited messaging and data plan. does this only apply to some media max garbage, or can I use Opera and browse the web without getting charged rediculiously
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I had this with my Fuze for about 2 months now. No Problems. Download things, Use Opera, Google Maps, and have no charges yet! Except for the $30 a month for the data plan.
wow this is great. unlimited data and text for 30 bucks a month. I'm posting this from my fuze!
amarpatel said:
wow this is great. unlimited data and text for 30 bucks a month. I'm posting this from my fuze!
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Whats the plan called where you get the unlimited Internet AND Texts?
PwnCakes193 said:
Whats the plan called where you get the unlimited Internet AND Texts?
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MediaWorks Unlimited, you need to sign up with a non-PDA IMEI, (or call customer service and change IMEI on record), $30 will get you unlimited messaging and unlimited internet. Tethering is also possible if you use \windows\intshrui.exe. Yes, everything ATT wants to charge $60+ for is entirely technically possible on a $15 data plan. There are no functional differences between MediaNet Unlimited and PDA Personal.
Keep in mind that the $30 plan does not allow for tethering your FUze to a laptop, that plan is like $50/month. BUT... there's a way around it so that you can still use the cheaper plan and get tethering on your laptop. It requires a registry hack, if anybody is interested let me know and I'll find the reg keys and post them here.
I remember reading some fine print verbage a while back stating that they generally limit you to 5gb of data transfer per month. On the rare chance they notice you're getting anywhere in that range they might investigate your usage and start charging you per kb over - most likely to dissuade you from downloading pr0n, warez, and mp3z.
ginhou said:
I remember reading some fine print verbage a while back stating that they generally limit you to 5gb of data transfer per month. On the rare chance they notice you're getting anywhere in that range they might investigate your usage and start charging you per kb over - most likely to dissuade you from downloading pr0n, warez, and mp3z.
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Give me pr0n or give me death!!!
k-semler said:
There are no functional differences between MediaNet Unlimited and PDA Personal.
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Hmmmm I dont think they are the same my friend. One allows you to connect to isp.cingular and use [email protected] ( Supposedly able to precache certain pages for PDA'S to make them load faster ) as your log on and apn. I have noticed that depending on my area, I get MUCH better throughput / lower latencies depending on my area.
Just my opinion though I suppose
ginhou said:
I remember reading some fine print verbage a while back stating that they generally limit you to 5gb of data transfer per month. On the rare chance they notice you're getting anywhere in that range they might investigate your usage and start charging you per kb over - most likely to dissuade you from downloading pr0n, warez, and mp3z.
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Thats a possibility for AT&T,
For Verizon (Like myself), we get unlimited, period. They cannot turn us off, or charge us for going over. They can however slow us down if we reach 5GB, but still if they charge us per kb if we go over 5GB then theres trouble.
the 5GB limit before charges applies only to their tethering plan, which you need to pay double for. However you can just use wmwifirouter or something else to do it.
Note. According to their ToS, And legal docs, they can shut you down for doing things against their terms which are
Hosting a server
Streaming data FROM your phone (Not to it)
and torrenting.
however, they cannot terminate your contract for tethering without their software, nor can they change your plan.
would love to get the hack.
smittyofdhs said:
Keep in mind that the $30 plan does not allow for tethering your FUze to a laptop, that plan is like $50/month. BUT... there's a way around it so that you can still use the cheaper plan and get tethering on your laptop. It requires a registry hack, if anybody is interested let me know and I'll find the reg keys and post them here.
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i used to have my fuze ready to go. then i traded in for a refurb. now i cant remember what i did to tether.
thanks
amarpatel said:
wow this is great. unlimited data and text for 30 bucks a month. I'm posting this from my fuze!
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I have a ATT Fuze with unlimited internet for $30 but the text messaging is seperate from the $30 internet, its like $5 a month for 200 texts or $20 for unlimited texting.
Yeah around here the only thing you can get for AT&T as the absolute minimum per month is the 450 anytime minutes for $40\Month, then the 200 messaging plan for $5, and the data plan for $30\month. That's $75 a month. 200 messages isnt NEARLY enough per month, I really need to have unlimited, which is $20\month. So that is $90 a month. That's way too much! Thats why when I get my Fuze I will not be going with the Data plan. $60 per month is still a lot.
So what happens if you set up wifi tethering and start using it without a tethering plan?
Do they know automatically or do they attempt to guess based on increases in data usage?
This would be using the menu options available to you under Network settings in STOCK (not rooted).
there no tethering plan with t-mobile you can wifi tether all you want. But if they do see that you're hitting your cap quickly lets say in a 3 month period. they'll text you if you want to upgrade.
when I was picking up my mt4gs, I overheard a rep trying to sell people an additional tethering plan. is that for unlimited tethering? I wanted to walk up to them and tell them I have been tethering since the G1 without any additional plan... the only real issue is getting throttled, but most months I don't hit the data cap.
pmcqueen said:
when I was picking up my mt4gs, I overheard a rep trying to sell people an additional tethering plan. is that for unlimited tethering? I wanted to walk up to them and tell them I have been tethering since the G1 without any additional plan... the only real issue is getting throttled, but most months I don't hit the data cap.
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Well the rep that sold me my MT4GS said that they don't throttle automatically. He had one customer use 200+GB before he was throttled. Apparently it's hit or miss anyway and he basically talked me into a lower data rate because of it.
Sent from my A500 using XDA Premium App
If you attempt to tether or do wi-fi sharing on any T-mobile phone that is capable of it one of four things will happen.. Either
A) it will fail...
B) Any browsing attempt will re-direct you to T-mobile.com
C) You will automatically get directed to a page that prompts you to call Customer care to add the $14.99/month Tethering and Wi-Fi sharing feature
D) It will allow you to browse a certain amount and then give you the above page.
The feature has to be on the account for tethering to work long term.. Even if you get away with it for a short time, eventually they will catch you and shut you off until you add the feature. The $14.99/month allows you to share whatever data is on your phone (2GB, 5GB, 10GB) with the phone and Tethering... SO... If you have the 5GB data plan, you get 5GB to share between tethering and your regular phone data usage, then speeds get slowed down to approx 100kbps after that until the bill cycle resets.
Like i told you before there is no tethering plan for t-mobile. My gf tether her phone with her iPad all the time. Nothing had happen so far.
Say that now, but I am guaranteeing you that T-mobile will catch up with her eventually.. There IS a tethering plan and you can call T-mobile and and verify that whenever you want.
Brock6949 said:
Say that now, but I am guaranteeing you that T-mobile will catch up with her eventually.. There IS a tethering plan and you can call T-mobile and and verify that whenever you want.
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I've been tethering since 2008 without a plan.
perhaps it has something to do with new data plans? I've had a grandfathered data plan for years.
pmcqueen said:
I've been tethering since 2008 without a plan.
perhaps it has something to do with new data plans? I've had a grandfathered data plan for years.
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Same and I have a grandfathered unlimited data plan that comes with unlimited texts for only $35. Been tethering forever.
I think he's just making it up. hahaha
A grandfathered plan may be the reason you are still able to tether, but I will tell you that I am a T-mobile employee who works in the phone as modem department and there IS a tethering plan that t-mobile does charge for... Infact, go to t-mobile's website and search for "Tethering" and then look at all of the official documents for tethering with different devices and they will all mention the tethering and wi-fi sharing feature.
Brock6949 said:
A grandfathered plan may be the reason you are still able to tether, but I will tell you that I am a T-mobile employee who works in the phone as modem department and there IS a tethering plan that t-mobile does charge for... Infact, go to t-mobile's website and search for "Tethering" and then look at all of the official documents for tethering with different devices and they will all mention the tethering and wi-fi sharing feature.
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I tethered my Touch Pro 2 a few times after they introduced tethering and nothing ever became...
rorytmeadows said:
I tethered my Touch Pro 2 a few times after they introduced tethering and nothing ever became...
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A few times may not have been enough for you to get the message... There is a preset threshold you have to meet or exceed to get the message about the tethering plan.. THey have not told any of us what that threshold is (for obvious reasons)
and even if you don't get the message right away, at some point our system will flag the account... Trust me, I field these calls 5 days a week.
Brock6949 said:
A few times may not have been enough for you to get the message... There is a preset threshold you have to meet or exceed to get the message about the tethering plan.. THey have not told any of us what that threshold is (for obvious reasons)
and even if you don't get the message right away, at some point our system will flag the account... Trust me, I field these calls 5 days a week.
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So how can they tell that it's tethering data vs. data from the phone? Especially since I can set my browser to desktop mode. Well, I'm too lazy to do it but if tethering ever goes to court, service providers will lose.
Sent from my myTouch_4G_Slide using XDA Premium App
There is no way to tell between tethering and phone data... it's all lumped together... even when you add the tethering feature (if the system makes you) you get your data shared with your cell data usage so on a non grandfathered rate plan you get 2gb,5gb, or 10gb to share between tethering and phone data usage.
Brock6949 said:
There is no way to tell between tethering and phone data... it's all lumped together... even when you add the tethering feature (if the system makes you) you get your data shared with your cell data usage so on a non grandfathered rate plan you get 2gb,5gb, or 10gb to share between tethering and phone data usage.
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So tethering won't get caught...
Sent from my A500 using XDA Premium App
HTTP traffic is TCP which means it's encoded in ASCII which makes it really easy to scan what goes over the line. In those HTTP headers they can check what the user-agent is as well as the time-to-live setting on each packet which will be different from a windows desktop connection.
However it's possible to mask this. I could in theory make an SSH connection from the phone to an SSH server I have on the internet and tunnel all my tethering through that. It would be very difficult to prove tethering at that point because it would be masked behind the phone's connection to a server.
That all being said. In real world usage I might only tether once or twice a month in what basically amounts to not much more bandwidth usage then normal.
Also. The telecom providers are very backhanded about tethering. We made tethering possible before they knew what the **** tethering even meant. I've been doing this since before most people understood what it means to tether. And I signed up for my unlimited plan back when unlimited meant unlimited. So uh..... T-mo can go **** itself if they expect me to pay extra. lol.
-my 2 cents
Akujin said:
We made tethering possible before they knew what the **** tethering even meant. I've been doing this since before most people understood what it means to tether. And I signed up for my unlimited plan back when unlimited meant unlimited. So uh..... T-mo can go **** itself if they expect me to pay extra. lol.
-my 2 cents
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YES!
Tethered on my MDA before I even used the word!
Theoretically based on some of the statements here of how PC band with flows, I should be able to tether my Acer A500 tablet without any problems or discovery.
Sent from my A500 using XDA Premium App
These questions relate to the nexus 5 and Tmobile simple choice as I was debating buy this for my wife.
First, I may have my terminology wrong.
I consider tethering using either usb or WiFi hotspot to share cell phones internet signal connection.
For the non unlimited plans - can you tether with nexus 5 AFTER you hit your data limit and are reduced to 2G speeds??
So if you get the 500 mb data plan, then you run out of data, your email on your phone will still work, just at slow speeds.
What about tethering? Will that work at slow speeds?
OK, now for the unlimited data plan. I read they limit hotspot to 500 mb. I interpret that as limiting tethering at 500mb.
First, how do they keep track of what data is tethered and what data is mobile phone?
Second, how do they shut the tethering off after you hit 500 mb in the unlimited plan?
Third, if they just throttle tethering, is there a way to make it still work to send email?
Any way to prevent the computer from thinking there is a problem with the internet connection because of the slow connection? Is the connection intermittent and that interrupts the tethered connection but not the mobile phone data??
Thank you
med007 said:
These questions relate to the nexus 5 and Tmobile simple connect as I was debating buy this for my wife.
First, I may have my terminology wrong.
I consider tethering using either usb or WiFi hotspot to share cell phones internet signal connection.
For the non unlimited plans - can you tether with nexus 5 AFTER you hit your data limit and are reduced to 2G speeds??
So if you get the 500 mb data plan, then you run out of data, your email on your phone will still work, just at slow speeds.
What about tethering? Will that work at slow speeds?
OK, now for the unlimited data plan. I read they limit hotspot to 500 mb. I interpret that as limiting tethering at 500mb.
First, how do they keep track of what data is tethered and what data is mobile phone?
Second, how do they shut the tethering off after you hit 500 mb in the unlimited plan?
Third, if they just throttle tethering, is there a way to make it still work to send email?
Any way to prevent the computer from thinking there is a problem with the internet connection because of the slow connection? Is the connection intermittent and that interrupts the tethered connection but not the mobile phone data??
Thank you
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all the tmobile plans besides the completely unlimited high speed data plan have unlimited tethering, meaning if you go over your data amount youll still be able to tether, but at edge speeds. the completely unlimited high spees data plan now comes with 2.5gb tethering, with an option to buy 2gb more. then you get cut off.
http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/31/9230595/t-mobile-unlimited-data-tethering-warning
I got my warning however tethering the normal way no longer works. Idk why. Might be my APN. So currently my only ability to tether is using WifiTetherRouter. I'm not sure but the post says once a customer has hit their limit they will be able to track who is using more tethering than they have. So not sure if they can still track people who are tethering before the limit is hit. This is my only current means of Internet. They think blocking my ability to tether is going to stop me from using my 9999999999tb monthly cap they are mistaken. I do most of my data downloads directly on my phone. 160 to 180gb worth a month. If they don't like it they shouldn't have given unlimited data. For what they want you to use it for, you won't even use up 5gb total. Browsing the Web and Facebooking.
What phone do you have and what method did you use to tether?
Wifi Tether Router used to not count against my tethering allotment, but now it does.
I also USB tether with PdaNet+, but I don't know yet if they detect this and count it against my allotment. I won't know (unless someone else confirms or denies) for a few days, because I only noticed this today after getting a text message that I've hit 80% of my allotment (6.1 out of 7.0GB), and I've got a few days left on my billing cycle, so I have to be cautious and conservative until it resets. I know Wifi Tether Router does this because tested it while watching the "Space Mutiny" MST3K episode on youtube (I got about half-way through it and went from 6.1 to 6.3GB used). I'll keep an eye on it and give updates when I have something to report.
I did get the dreaded text message about violating the TOS by concealing tether usage to circumvent my 7.0GB allotment with my plan. It's interesting that they're able to detect, and now track wifi tethering with Wifi Tether Router, yet are still threatening to "punish" abusers. Because what would be the point since I'd hit my 7.0GB allotment and get throttled to 128kb/sec? This leads me to believe that other methods might still work. Maybe signing up for a VPN? I'm still worried though (since I'm already flagged), and I'm going to radically change my habits, at least for the time being. I'd hate to have to switch to Sprint. I do use a lot of data. Right now I'm at 118GB with a couple days left on my cycle. Once (the first or second month after switching) I hit just shy of 400GB, but that was because I'd just come from Verizon where I had a 4GB limit (and absurd bills because I'd go over), so I did a ton of downloading. Most months I'm under 200GB. Maybe the FCC will slap T-Mobile on the wrist and tell them they can't do this, but I have no idea if what they're threatening is truly kosher or not. It does irk me that Legere has been spending the last couple years spouting all this "Uncarrier" and "truly unlimited" stuff, and first they semi-throttle during peak times if you go over 21GB/month, and now this business. Yet, music streaming doesn't count? What if someone streams 12 hours of music every day, using the cheapest plan? How much data does that use? How is that less evil than downloading torrents to my phone then transferring them over to my PC instead of just tethering and downloading to my PC (arguments about torrenting/piracy aside). How is tethering and watching Amazon Prime, youtube, or whatever on my TV any different than doing the same on my phone? Same data, same content, yet I'm a data thief?
As I mentioned, torrenting is another issue, because you're uploading as well as downloading, so I can see why they'd get upset with that. I also find it irksome that in their press-release they mention nearly 3000 customers (wow, I'm one of 3000!), some who use as much as 2TB/month. I can't even conceive of actually using that much data for myself. So it's obvious that those users are running torrent servers (constant ones, not just download and delete), or game servers, or running a hotspot for entire household. And I don't like being lumped into that group of true abusers, even though I lose some moral ground on the torrent issue (plus the whole piracy thing).
I guess I need to buy some more 64GB microSD cards...
I notice WiFi Tether Router does let some leak in. I used PDA net on my old vetizon work phone that had no tethering plan. It allowed me to tether despite not having tethering on the plan.
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