Can my netwok operater tell if I am tethering?

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

I am on Orange.

Tethering is not included in my plan.

I just turned on tethering on my phone and it worked absolutely fine.

How can Orange tell I using my phone for tethering rather than just surfing on 3G? Can they tell? Will i get into trouble for illicitly tethering?

Ok, actually it is included :) But is itemised seperately. But I am still intrigued to know how they differentiate between "standard" data and "tethered" data?

if you have an iphone then tethered data is sent/received to the phone carriers networks via a different network connection than direct data so is easy for them to pick out the tethered data.

If you have another type of phone (eg Android) then this function isnt inbuilt into these phones. A phone company could still tell - or rather make an informed guess that you were tethering if eg your data use is high, or by scanning the packets of data you are sending across the network - not reading its contents, but looking at some of the packaging information that the data packets have to tell that its source was not your phone but a tethered device.

Whether or not the phone companies bother to do any of the above - dunno!

Sorry - pingulingo - what function isn't in Android phones ?

If you mean 'tethering' then they may not describe it as such, but serving as a 'hotspot' is not only supported on Android v2.3 (and perhaps earlier), but works very well, thanks, on my Samsung Galaxy phones (Ace and Europa) and on the Huawei Blaze.

However, if one identifies the phone (I have a SIM only contract) my network certainly disabled the facility by sending some control data to the phone...

NetworkGuy - Iphones allow the phone companies to have two APNs and to connect only to the second APN for any tethered data ? so its then easy for the phone company to restrict or charge extra for tethering. I didn?t think that Android phones have this functionality in their software and so when accessing the network, the Android phones doesn?t direct tethered data any differently than normal phone data, and so is harder for the phone companies to track whether an Android user is using tethering/personal hotspot. (I didnt mean that Android phones lack the ability to tether.)

But, guessing by your username you may know more than me and so I?m happy to be corrected!

nah, lots about mobiles to learn, and to be frank unsure how they detect / block on Android...

I use my Samsung Galaxy as a hotspot for DD's iPod in the car, Am I not meant to? Don't think I've been charged extra. It works well so hope is ok to continue

bj - depends which network and what contract you are on.

For example, on Three, only The One Plan allows the customer to link other devices via their phone.

If I try to tether on one of my phones, on Three (I have a SIM Only deal) then it clocks up 1p for some quantity of data. If the network detects it, they can possibly be adding significant charges to your bill, so do check account balance now and then. If I try to do that with the hotspot enabled on my phone, I get an error message telling me to disable the hotspot (in fact, I don't think I am able to browse anything else until I've restarted that phone, but I could be wrong).

pingulingo is correct.

When I had an android phone, could happily tether for free. I bought an iphone, switched to a micro sim, but couldn't tether until I called up o2 and asked them to enable it and paid extra for the privilege I'm sure it's jsut another way to fleece iphone users.

Some networks have been charging Blackberry users extra for years, so not just an iPhone thing!

It is ridiculous though. I don't know how they can get away with it. Data is data, and I presume it doesn't need any extra infrastructure at their end. So I don't know how they can justify charging extra for it if you already have a data bundle.

This is another iPhone annoyance that drove me away..

I'm not allowed to tether with my android really, but I do occasionally if I'm stuck. I don't abuse my data ( though it's not capped) when tethering - so my overall use level isn't any different, and my overal use isn't at a level that they'll get excited about..

I have an android phone which I tether to ipod touch, ipad or laptop as necessary. I'm not on the One Plan but have 1G of data per month and although it gets used up more quickly if I have been tethering, I don't get charged any extra.

For the previous two posters - can I just suggest that whenever you check your allowance you do so from a laptop/ desktop, or that if you ever do go into the My3 account facility from your mobile, you never respond to the section which asks what mobile phone you are using...

If you do identify the make and model of the phone, I suspect you'll find that tethering in future gets blocked with an error message, as the network can send out a system message to your phone to block such usage.

IAGTBF - I suspect they do it because they can just like that additional charge for some Blackberry users.

In all honesty, though, many people say they never reach 500 MB in a month.

If you tether, you are much more likely to use more, and they probably have some projections about the total usage for their whole network. If 20% of users go up to their limit, it exceeds their projections, and their costs go up.

GiffGaff is planning to make changes because their '10 pound goodybag' deal which allows unlimited texts and unlimited data is both popular and now being used by lots of people. It's so popular, the cost of it (O2 charges by the MB) is exceeding the income, and they are thinking of charging 13 quid or more for the unlimited data package.

They also say they will be modifying their software to be better at detecting and preventing tethering from the start of 2013, as they're clearly finding that while they allow tethering for a fee, lots tether by bypassing their existing blocks. (It perhaps depends on the phones being used, so they might be more suspicious of Android users, for example, in future.)