PC Mobile unlimited data!?

[DataDude]

Hello,

Hofo members who know me know that I'm just a tiny bit obsessed with getting unlimited mobile data. So, before asking specific questions about this plan...I'll ask whether someone is willing to part with their UL data plan? If so, I'll happily take it from you for a five hundred dollars at least.

Now my question is, are there any restrictions on this plan? For example, is tethering supported, and will it work on iPhones? On the grandfathered unlimited plans, is there throttling/soft caps?

[Ian Brantford]

Yes, you have obviously been on the scrounge for a while.. and it's probably your only chance! :-) I am not willing to sell mine, but I'll answer your questions as well as I can.

Tethering is blocked. However, you can operate a WiFi hotspot. I have only used it for Web browsing and email, so I do not know if any popular ports are blocked. I believe that I tried my corporate VPN at one point. It worked in the summer.

It works on iPhones, but users have had issues with certain iPhone applications (sucha s Facetime) discreetly using texting behind the scenes. Carriers who offer the iPhone appear to know about these specific texts and do not charge for them. You'd have to read the earlier threads here on HoFo to get the details.

Some users experimented with consuming many gigabytes of data without hitting any caps. Then Bell made PC Mobility stop offering the unlimited data option, so you can thank those people for your current inability to get this option at retail anymore! Oh, you'll probably have to buy an account from one of these people, so it really is profitable for them. :-/ Frankly, I wish that they would just do it as WIND does -- when you hit a cap, you aren't cut off or charged more, but rather are throttled for speed until the next month.

[DataDude]

Ah, okay. If tethering's blocked, I'm not interested in the plan. Thanks for the info!

As an aside, someone claims to be able to offer me a prepaid Bell SIM card with a $10 unlimited data option. He says he pulls around 100 GBs a month on this plan, in an air card. Does that sound plausible at all? Would there be any chance that anyone could have this option on Bell prepaid?

[jattdesi]

^That was me that offered it to you. Its called bell unlimited mobile browser, you may want to check the Bell Forums regarding this. I recently sold one to a Member on howardforums from Toronto. Not sure if he reads the prepaid section on this forum, if he is reading this, I am sure he post his expereince in dealing with me.

Sent from Bell Samsung Galaxy 551 with Howardforums Android Application running on Shared Bell HSPA + Network

[Musiq Soulchild]

I have this and can confirm that tethering is allowed. I personally tether all the time. I can even do wifi hotspot no problem.

BTW I have the 25cents a day unlimited browsing which comes out to 7.5 per month.

[DataDude]

^That was me that offered it to you. Its called bell unlimited mobile browser, you may want to check the Bell Forums regarding this. I recently sold one to a Member on howardforums from Toronto. Not sure if he reads the prepaid section on this forum, if he is reading this, I am sure he post his expereince in dealing with me.

Sent from Bell Samsung Galaxy 551 with Howardforums Android Application running on Shared Bell HSPA + Network

But unlimited mobile "browser" plans generally don't permit tethering. Are you sure it's rule-cool to do it? How much would you be asking for this plan?

[DataDude]

I have this and can confirm that tethering is allowed. I personally tether all the time. I can even do wifi hotspot no problem.

BTW I have the 25cents a day unlimited browsing which comes out to 7.5 per month.

The PC Mobile one, you mean? Or the Bell one?

[jattdesi]

But unlimited mobile "browser" plans generally don't permit tethering. Are you sure it's rule-cool to do it? How much would you be asking for this plan?

You don't discuss the price in Public, I sent you PM, you can either call me or send me a PM, I would be willing to show you as a fellow hofo member my setup with the Mofi Router & the bell huawei data stick (supports speed up to 21Mbps) via Skype Video calling. I haven't tried Skype video calling but would be willing to go through it to show you. let me know.

[Musiq Soulchild]

The PC Mobile one, you mean? Or the Bell one?

Yeah the PC Mobile one.

[cmstlist]

Tethering works on devices that aren't designed to ask the network for permission. Works on my unlocked Telus Optimus One, and I was also able to configure an unlocked AT&T hotspot with the right APN.

I gotta say, $500 is tempting given my present lack of income. But I also really like having this data option available to me... Damn why didn't I activate a second SIM while I had the chance? :-P

Sent from my Nook Color!

[Fortissimo]

I am tempted by OP's offer but I have to think about it. I have used it with Hotspot mode successfully from MiFi 2372, iPhone 4, and 2 diff. Android phones. So is that tethering? It depends on how you define "tethering", but basically most things work, and exception could be no difference than other officially paid data plans, so I don't think this plan makes it any less so. I haven't tested all VPN combo, so I can't say it's 100% exactly same as other Bell's plan, but so far I think it should be as it uses the Bell's Internet APN.

If OP's still looking then please send me a PM to discuss further. But honestly, I think OP's making a big gamble as no one knows when PC Mobile will pull this, as this is not an official plan usage.

[Ian Brantford]

No, enabling a hotspot is not the same as tethering. Tethering involves specific connection protocols (which are easily detectable by the carrier) to make your handset behave just like a modem, a specific type of "bridge" device, and of course it only works with a single client device. Hotspots make your phone act like a WiFi router, which looks like a single Internet-connected client device to the external network, but like a local IP switch with NAT to your own device(s). Hotspots require traffic inspection if the carrier wants to block them.

However, I don't know enough details about the tethering protocols to say what the variations are. Assuming that the earlier posts by Musiq Soulchild and cmstlist above must be confusing the above connection types, I did some experiments and... they are right! Well, at least in some cases it all all good. While my Blackjack reports that tethering is refused by the carrier (on PC Mobile, but not on Fido), my Nexus S will tether on PC Mobile. I should point out that the Nexus S has controls that are expressly labelled as "tethering" over USB or Bluetooth. I used USB.

I don't have a wide variety of services to try, in aid of detecting blocked ports. With tethering on USB, Web browsing works fine, including Flash videos such as on YouTube. On WiFi hotspot, MS Outlook Exchange and VPN worked. I only tethered to a Windows 7 PC with minimal apps.; Android won't natively tether to Windows XP on my corporate laptop. However, I expect to upgrade it to Windows 7 this week. I will try VPN & Exchange afterwards and let you know what happens.

BTW, the Nexus S was able to support both tethering via USB and running a WiFi hotspot simultaneously.

[cmstlist]

However, I don't know enough details about the tethering protocols to say what the variations are. Assuming that the earlier posts by Musiq Soulchild and cmstlist above must be confusing the above connection types, I did some experiments and... they are right! Well, at least in some cases it all all good. While my Blackjack reports that tethering is refused by the carrier (on PC Mobile, but not on Fido), my Nexus S will tether on PC Mobile. I should point out that the Nexus S has controls that are expressly labelled as "tethering" over USB or Bluetooth. I used USB.

I don't know much about tethering protocols either, but I would surmise the following:
- Some phones' built-in tethering features (e.g. stock Android) appear to work without requesting any kind of permission from the carrier, using the existing mobile data connection and whatever APN is programmed in already.
- Some phones (and/or firmwares) appear to request permission from the carrier using a defined protocol - for example, iPhone tethering checks for some kind of permission flag that indicates whether it's allowed on your account. Many carrier-programmed Androids strip out the native tethering and replace it with a separate app that requests permission to tether.
- Some phones (and/or firmwares) are designed or even hard-coded to use a different APN when tethering. This is the basis upon which some carriers make a distinction between on-device and tethering usage.

[Ian Brantford]

I don't know much about tethering protocols either, but I would surmise the following:
- Some phones' built-in tethering features (e.g. stock Android) appear to work without requesting any kind of permission from the carrier, using the existing mobile data connection and whatever APN is programmed in already.

My guess is that the specifications are well described somewhere at http://www.3gpp.org/specification-numbering, but I'm not going to comb through it. :-)

While some handsets require manufacturer-supplied software to talk to a PC and mimic modems (my Nokia 6230b and SE T715a do this), I found that neither the Samsung Blackjack nor the Nexus S do this. Then again, the Blackjack is an old Windows phone that requires ActiveSync and it's hard to tell what it's doing under the covers. Anyway, with these latter handsets, all that is visible to the Windows user is that a new network device becomes available. Rather than behaving like a modem, these handsets are behaving like an Ethernet device as far as the PC is concerned, so the PC doesn't have to do anything to manage the outside connection. With a modem, it does.

- Some phones (and/or firmwares) appear to request permission from the carrier using a defined protocol - for example, iPhone tethering checks for some kind of permission flag that indicates whether it's allowed on your account. Many carrier-programmed Androids strip out the native tethering and replace it with a separate app that requests permission to tether.

I expect so. What I didn't expect is to find the no-permission behaviour natively supported on a handset, rather than working through some dodgy app, which is what iPhone users with forbidden-tethering accounts have to do.

- Some phones (and/or firmwares) are designed or even hard-coded to use a different APN when tethering. This is the basis upon which some carriers make a distinction between on-device and tethering usage.

That's a good point, which leads to another... to get data service on PC Mobile, I followed the advice on this forum to set the Access Point to proxy.bell.ca . Bell could decide to cut that off at any time, which is a much lower threshold for our loss than, say, Fido cutting off its $50 grandfathered unlimited data service.

[sengook]

In advance I was too lazy to completely finish reading every post.

Firstly, I've used it with an Android, iPhone and now Novatel u547 (http://www.bell.ca/Mobility/Products...47_Turbo_Stick) all worked well, for the iPhone native tethering did not work BUT using hotspot applications like MyWi worked great. Did not try to tether on android though. Using the bell stick worked perfectly though for anything, the pings in Toronto are really good too, enough to play Call of Duty on even. All ports seem to work fine on a laptop using the stick and using a computer to share the connection allows 2-4 devices to work okay (with only 1 bar of signal I couldn't tell how well it was working)