I received a notice for tethering TM506 with t-zones

[samus250]

Hello,

I've been tethering my TM506 in T-Mobile's HSPA+ network with the T-zones plan for many months now. The most data I've consumed in a month is 19GB. That was back in February, yet I didn't get a notice.

This month I haven't used much data, maybe 2GB tops. Today I received a text message telling me that the service might get blocked unless I buy a $30 5GB plan + $15 200MB tethering plan. I feel insulted. I would never survive with 200MB. I am using this service as my main connection because I live up in the hills in a super rural place, and for some miracle T-Mobile has 4G here.

Does anybody know a way to be stealthy enough so that T-Mobile can't detect I'm tethering through the TM506?

Thanks!

[brad15]

be glad you've skirted the system for a long time, the $15 is not "200mb" it's 5GB just like your phone plan it (it just mooches off your phone's data allowance)

hell if you're going to be paying that you might as well get an android or something with hotspot capability so it runs faster

and honestly using 19GB in one month pretty much eats up all their profit from you for the entire year on the TZones plan, so at this point you're actually costing T-Mobile money to keep you so i can understand why they sent that text

[vikingjunior]

19GB really

[samus250]

Oh well... I was pretty happy when T-Mobile installed 4G here and I got grandfathered in that plan.

It really doesn't feel like I've cost them money or like I'm destroying the network though, the crappy TM506 saturates at 2mbps, and I live so far from town that it seems like we're 10 people on the whole cell.

I think I'll end up getting that webconnect plan then, $50 for 5GB or $85 for 10GB. It's absurd paying $50 for a phone that will top off at 2mbps vs. a modem that would apparently give me like 42mbps. Though the best option would be some stealth

[brad15]

Oh well... I was pretty happy when T-Mobile installed 4G here and I got grandfathered in that plan.

It really doesn't feel like I've cost them money or like I'm destroying the network though, the crappy TM506 saturates at 2mbps, and I live so far from town that it seems like we're 10 people on the whole cell.

I think I'll end up getting that webconnect plan then, $50 for 5GB or $85 for 10GB. It's absurd paying $50 for a phone that will top off at 2mbps vs. a modem that would apparently give me like 42mbps. Though the best option would be some stealth

its not that you're "destroying" the network (although using an older device you're not exactly the most efficient use of resources), but i have read around a few places that for wired broadband it costs ~1.50-2.00 per gb you use to deliver, so in theory wireless is about 2x with having all the wireless side upkeep and power to run everything necessary, so we'll go conservative and say $3.00 per gb, so 3.00x19=57 (as an example) and that's a lot more than you're paying for T-Zones

[samus250]

geeze... never thought about it that way. No wonder that even Sprint will be capping data soon.

I think I got what I deserve then :/

Thanks for all the info!

[jet1000]

If you browse, use Firefox on your PC with the User Agent Switcher. T-Mobile won't be able to detect that you're using a pc, because the User Agent Switcher can make your pc look like a mobile browser. Then you'll be all good.

There's a thread explaining more details from last year about how to set it up.

[samus250]

Yeah, I kinda noticed that. I got blocked on Chromium. I switched to Firefox and it all worked good. After some time, I got blocked on Firefox, and switched back to Chromium. Again, it worked. So all I need to do is switch the User-Agent string from time to time.

I also noticed that the only port blocked is port 80. Every other port (e.g. HTTPS, FTP, SSH, bittorrent, whatever) is unblocked. So I set up a proxy server that would pipe everything through another port. As expected, it works.

Thanks!

[jet1000]

I also noticed that the only port blocked is port 80. Every other port (e.g. HTTPS, FTP, SSH, bittorrent, whatever) is unblocked. So I set up a proxy server that would pipe everything through another port. As expected, it works.

Right. T-Mobile didn't spend a lot of time in implementing this tethering block.

[itouchmacbook]

So how does the User Agent Switcher work? Do I just install it and it will do it automatically?

If you browse, use Firefox on your PC with the User Agent Switcher. T-Mobile won't be able to detect that you're using a pc, because the User Agent Switcher can make your pc look like a mobile browser. Then you'll be all good.

There's a thread explaining more details from last year about how to set it up.

[jet1000]

There's a thread on here that explains it. It was the T-Mobile starts charging for tethering thread---something like that. In that thread, someone discovered that the User Agent Switcher worked. And they posted the instructions.

Basically it makes your pc browser appear like a mobile browser. Once you do that, T-Mobile thinks you're browsing from a phone and will let you alone.

[itouchmacbook]

If I use cradlepoint router will it block tethering? Do I need user agent switcher?

[jet1000]

If I use cradlepoint router will it block tethering? Do I need user agent switcher?

They've only blocked tethering for a few people. Most people they don't block. If they do block you, you can use user agent switcher to get around it.

[ncd]

They've only blocked tethering for a few people. Most people they don't block. If they do block you, you can use user agent switcher to get around it.

jet1000,

Which user agent do you use with the FF extension? The only mobile one I see in the default settings says iPhone?

Tks.

[jet1000]

See post 155 of this thread where pokerpua talks about adding additional user agents and one that he found that worked well:

http://www.howardforums.com/showthre...ther-15/page11