Mildly Infuriating

max 128kbps

TMobile doesn't have a hard throttle, but they'll cut priority under congestion so that if wherever you are has someone else vying for the bandwidth, they get first shot.

Frankly, given that the limited resource is the cell bandwidth, that seems like a more reasonable way to go. It doesn't hurt them much if someone wants available bandwidth and there's no contention for it from others.

not to be a shill, but i have xfinity mobile, and they gave me unlimited tethering. there is service degradation at some point, but i haven't ever hit it or if i have i haven't noticed it.

What is the difference between cellular data being used on my phone and cellular data being used on my notebook?

The difference is the cellular company's profits amount.

Your data is unlimited, the SPEED of the data is not. ;)

I've had great success getting around these restrictions.

CalyxOS + Always on VPN (mullvad)

The secret sauce is using a Android version that allows you to share your VPN with hotspotting. I believe only calyxos and lineage allow you to do this. Since the VPN client is running on the phone, all the traffic that originates from the phone will look like phone data, with the appropriate time to live, OS fingerprinting, etc.

This can't be done on stock Android, because it does not allow the VPN to be shared over tethering. So tethering traffic will not getting capsulated on the VPN client. There's a security argument for this, but I prefer the user flexibility of allowing all the traffic to get VPNed.

It's still possible to do this without VPN sharing on the phone, you can use normal tethering on a unlocked phone, like stock Android. You just have to modify the traffic signature to look like whatever the carrier is looking for. Setting the appropriate time to live, using a VPN, and doing other OS fingerprinting tricks to keep the traffic consistent. It's much easier to use a ROM that lets you share the VPN

Using a phone purchased through them or unlocked? Locked phones will have proprietary bullshit to check if you are using a hotspot

You see, this is why we need net neutrality

EDIT: see, im glad someone else said it already

This is why I love Google Fi. I go anywhere on earth, and I have coverage. Unlimited everything. Never worry about nothing, ever, and has carrier bonding for when you're really out there.

Oops

I'd have a lot of fun trying to get around it. For example, if the phone and the computer were on the same non-Internet-connected wifi network, and you set up an SSH server to send outbound requests through the 4G modem, would they be able to find out you're using the hotspot?

Unlimited with a limit