Cancel landline + DSL to get T-Mobile $30/month plan w/5gigs data and tether?

[blinblue]

I use the t-mobile $30/month plan as my mobile internet for my train commute. There is no tethering "fee", whatever you favorite method to make your phone a hotspot will work just fine (you can even throw your t-mobile prepaid sim card into a dedicated hotspot device and it will work just fine).

However, it does check your browser's user-agent, if it is a desktop OS, it will count that data towards that 100MB/month tethering allocation. It is simple enough to bypass, just get your favorite user-agent switcher extension for your browser. I've found that setting it to some random Linux user-agent works best. It gets around t-mobile's checks, and websites won't force their stupid mobile version of their websites.

I would imagine some VPN solution would work as well, but the user-agent switching is quick and dirty and works fine for my purposes. T-Mobile's 4G LTE can be really fast depending on where you are, I often get about 25 Mbps down and up.

 

[holden j caufield]

There's a lot of misinformation in this thread.

There is no tethering fee on TMobile. You can do it straight from your phone, but they'll throttle your connection if you go over the allowable limit via tethering. For example, if you get an unlimited plan, you can use unlimited data on your phone, but you can only use a preset amount via a tethered connection, e.g. 1/3/5/7/9/11/etc. GB. It all depends on the plan you choose, but you can definitely tether whenever you want. Note: once you hit the limit, the connection will still show 3G/4G/LTE/whatever, but the bandwidth will be throttled to Edge, which is pretty damn slow. It still works well enough for GPS, email, and very light browsing, but you can definitely feel it.

OP, I did exactly what you're wanting to do for 3 weeks before I had a home internet connection. We eventually hit our data limits on both phones, which caused the connections to be artificially throttled until the next cycle, but that was it. I upgraded our plans that month to 3 GB for a total of 6 GB, which was plenty for a few weeks of light internet usage. Most of the people telling you it's not possible are probably using idiotic amounts of bandwidth to sit around watching netflix all day. If you're used to that place called 'outside', you can be successful with the concept in your OP.

Thanks for the info. My mom has "Preferred Phone First Unlimited Web Only" though I recently got her a netflix account. I got her a samsung galaxy nexus, it's older but works great. Can we enable tethering on her phone, then have a dd-wrt router in bridge mode connect to it, or would tmobile shut that down very fast.

 

[lupi]

have a $9 tmobile voip landline, love it.

 

[XavierMace]

Regarding the signal/speed issue people have mentioned, personally I get 65Mbps Down and 25Mbps up on TMobile in my house.

However, it does check your browser's user-agent, if it is a desktop OS, it will count that data towards that 100MB/month tethering allocation. It is simple enough to bypass, just get your favorite user-agent switcher extension for your browser. I've found that setting it to some random Linux user-agent works best. It gets around t-mobile's checks, and websites won't force their stupid mobile version of their websites.

LOL, is that seriously how they are determing tethering usage? That would mean they have no way of counting non-http traffic.

 

[alkemyst]

The problem is with only 5GB is probably not enough for even forum usage in a month.

I have a 10GB plan because the discounts on my cellphones make that cheaper than going below that. With the kids we were hitting 30GB a month plus I have 105Mbps internet service.

I have throttled them down to keep everyone under 10GB.

Also as we got close to our limits and during peak times I believe I was being throttled as my speed tests would show 1.5Mbps as other's mentioned and no where near LTE/4G speeds.

I am allowed to tether and hotspot on my plan with Verizon.

 

[rsutoratosu]

There's a lot of misinformation in this thread.

look at that.. i tried this sometimes beginning of they year and it says you must call to subscribe hotspot.. it works now ! woot..