Three Mobile

[BoredBloke]

I have a mobile with 3 and pay an extra £5 a month for data. In their terms and conditions it states that my phone should not be used as a modem. Does anybody know how they could tell if it was? Surely from their perspective, if my phone is acting as a router then it would look the same as if I was using the phone to surf the net on. Does anybody know if it's possible to tell if I use my mobile in this way?

 

[Spacecadet]

I have a mobile with 3 and pay an extra £5 a month for data. In their terms and conditions it states that my phone should not be used as a modem. Does anybody know how they could tell if it was? Surely from their perspective, if my phone is acting as a router then it would look the same as if I was using the phone to surf the net on. Does anybody know if it's possible to tell if I use my mobile in this way?

Occasional use - probably not
Regular heavy use - yes

If you browse the web on the phone you'll notice that images are compressed and lower quality.
If you use your phone as a modem for your laptop then they won't have the same compression.

Telecommunications companies keep records (by law) of all of your activity and it wouldn't take a genious to work out and prove who's using their mobile as a tethered modem


Simple answer is, yes they can tell but if you only very occasionally use it then they probably won't care

 

[doodab]

If you browse the web on the phone you'll notice that images are compressed and lower quality.
If you use your phone as a modem for your laptop then they won't have the same compression.

I found with VF Germany they recompress the images but it's the same on both phone & laptop. O2 Germany don't seem to do this for either.

FWIW, whether I use my O2 DE PAYG tethered or on my phone, or put the SIM into the built in 3G modem in my laptop, it all appears as the same thing on the "usage" page. I also have 3 SIMs (each one is good for 5GB per €25 payment but it's on a monthly basis so you can't easily do > 5GB a month otherwise) and have on several occasions maxed them out and I've not had any bother about using it as a modem from them at all.

 

[BoredBloke]

Cheers - never thought about the compression thing.