How to bypass "tethering block" on Three network?

I think as well, Three try to segregate their network between phone and mobile broadband. Certainly in some areas I can see two "3" networks, and if I manually try and connect to the wrong one It tells me that my sim is of the wrong type to connect.

So in some parts of the network mobile broadband customers are going through (some) different infrastructure than phone customers. From their point of view if you could tether as much as you liked, then it would screw their network management plan.

Slug said:

One reason is that the mobile phone tariffs are calculated based on average smartphone usage, and tethering invariably incurs larger bandwidth usage. Another reason may be because Three also offer very competitive data-only tariffs intended for other devices, so they've no desire to cannibalise their potential customer base.

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So what difference does 100gb from a phone make from 100gb from a PC make to a carrier?
With multiplayer online games and plenty torrent apps on android and an abundance of porn, what differentiates a phone from a PC?

funkylogik said:

So what difference does 100gb from a phone make from 100gb from a PC make to a carrier?
With multiplayer online games and plenty torrent apps on android and an abundance of porn, what differentiates a phone from a PC?

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Nothing really, download movies on a phone or tablet, download movies on a PC, doing the same thing. But this is something that 3 seems to do, and if you're a 3 customer you have to live with it and try and work around it if you can...by the looks of things.

Sure I've said this before, IMO 3 is rather like the carrier equivalent of something like Ryanair, the basic service is cheap, but then they'll try and gouge you for extras in anyway they can. Last time I was in the UK, I was using Lebara, who only charge 1p a minute for calls to China, 3 charges a whopping £1 a minute.

funkylogik said:

what differentiates a phone from a PC?

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The data packets. Deep packet inspection can tell the network the type of device used to originate the transfer.

It's a question of managing capacity. Problems start when mobile data connections become lengthy, such as downloading many GBs in a single session, as each cell or basestation can only accommodate a finite number of concurrent connections. I think 4G/LTE-A will improve this situation as it's rolled out.

mikedt said:

Last time I was in the UK, I was using Lebara, who only charge 1p a minute for calls to China, 3 charges a whopping £1 a minute.

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It's easy to resell airtime cheaply when you're not paying to build or maintain the infrastructure. That's the whole raison d'etre of MVNOs.

I can't get anthing to work to bypass the block, which is bl**dy annoying since I wasn't made aware of the tethering issue and I'm out of the 14 day period and need to tether for work reasons.

I can't tether to anyhing, another phone, tablet or laptop.

??

I can tether to anything but my brother recently got a 3 sim and while it let's him tether to another mobile device (tablet) it seems to be blocking his laptop

Still seems to be a lot of variants here, but it does sound like 3 is detecting the OS of the device, probably deep packet inspections. Because tethering an Android tablet appears the same as the phone, it's still Android, whereas a Windows laptop is not. But on the other hand, some might not be able to tether at all.

If someone needs to be tethering for business reasons, maybe get the company to pay for it as expenses?

I have a slightly different problem with the same *I think* cause.

I have a mobile broadband contract, which I use all over Europe. Naturally, I need to connect handsets/laptops/tablets to the dongle in order to use the data. I assumed that this was essentially the same as tethering.

Until now, all has been peachy, but I recently upgraded an old cell contract, and now have a spare iPhone 4. I thought it might be useful to replace the essentially feedback-poor dongle by moving the SIM to the iPhone - for data use only - and to tether to that instead.

Here's the odd part: it worked fine in my home country: UK, and seemed to work elsewhere until I recently updated the carrier settings on the iPhone. Now it doesn't work outside my home country (still works fine in the UK), although switching the SIM back to the dongle works fine anywhere in the Feel at Home countries.

As I see it, I'm not doing anything to contravene the terms of use - but somehow, the connection seems to know what hardware the SIM is installed in - regardless of hardware or browser used on the client device - and blocks using the iPhone in place of the dongle.

RDIT said:

it worked fine in my home country: UK, and seemed to work elsewhere until I recently updated the carrier settings on the iPhone.

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Was this an automatic update, rather than you entering the settings manually? If so it's probably using the APN settings for a Three smartphone, which won't work correctly for mobile broadband.

Slug said:

Was this an automatic update, rather than you entering the settings manually? If so it's probably using the APN settings for a Three smartphone, which won't work correctly for mobile broadband.

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Both - I tried the automatic carrier update via ITunes (which I expect could very well just install the standard APN) and then tried installing an APN via unlock.co.nz. Neither seemed to make a difference.

Given that those 'geniuses' at Apple believe that we mere minions no longer need to be able to view - let alone edit - the APN I have no way of checking what settings are now being used.

Hi,

Just to let you know, I have been tethering my Three Unlimited plan and have no issues.

I've discovered the following;

If I use my Three SIM card in;

Android Device Jellybean 4.2.2 - Tethering works fine - Using a Linux Netbook/Other tablets/iphone no issues
Android Device KitKat 4.4.4 - Tethering is blocked - Warning texts received.
Android Device Lollipop - Yet to try as I don't have a device which has this.

Interesting to see what others are doing..

May not be the OS though: manufacturer, model, whether the carrier has had a hand in the software - there may be more factors than just the Android version.

(Sorry, professional scientist, so asking "is this a properly controlled experiment" is a matter of reflex )

ThreeFree said:

Hi,

Just to let you know, I have been tethering my Three Unlimited plan and have no issues.

I've discovered the following;

If I use my Three SIM card in;

Android Device Jellybean 4.2.2 - Tethering works fine - Using a Linux Netbook/Other tablets/iphone no issues
Android Device KitKat 4.4.4 - Tethering is blocked - Warning texts received.
Android Device Lollipop - Yet to try as I don't have a device which has this.

Interesting to see what others are doing..

Click to expand...

I'm on the pay as you go, all you can eat data and I don't have any problems except that it is very slow between 3PM and 12PM.
I do use a VPN on my PC though.

I use 2 phones as hot spots-

A Note 2 with a custom Rom - Jellybean 4.12 WanamLite Rom
A S3 with a custom Rom - Lolipop 5.1 Cyanogen Mod 12.1

I have just got a new s5 sim free and put my three sim only contract sim in it and as soon as i put tethering on i get a text meassage from three the s5 is running Lollipop. I used to have an s2 with the same sim in and that was on jellybean and tethering my Nexus 7 to it worked fine. So maybe something in the later versions of android inform the carrier about tethering.

Hmm my tablet broke before my phone got lollipop so I can't test it mate

Yeah my nexus 7 just died lollipop 5.1.1 or hardware no one seems to know it's gone in for repair.

I have the opposite 'problem'. I am on Three and have 2gb hotspot allowance, but every time I tether on my windows laptop it doesn't seem to go down? Like, my phone says I've used 2gb of data by tethering but when I go on my Three account it says I haven't used any of my allowance.

Is it going to catch up with me, or am I just lucky and three just doesnt seem to be able to track my tethering usage? I am on cyanogenmod if that makes any difference, like if that effects whether they can tell if I'm tethering or not? Any input would be helpful!

hannahbanana99 said:

I have the opposite 'problem'. I am on Three and have 2gb hotspot allowance, but every time I tether on my windows laptop it doesn't seem to go down? Like, my phone says I've used 2gb of data by tethering but when I go on my Three account it says I haven't used any of my allowance.

Is it going to catch up with me, or am I just lucky and three just doesnt seem to be able to track my tethering usage? I am on cyanogenmod if that makes any difference, like if that effects whether they can tell if I'm tethering or not? Any input would be helpful!

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I'd say if they don't charge you after the first month of excessive use then they can't really backdate it but that's just a "hunch" so don't take my word for it

Hmm thats odd... I'm on a three contract which includes tethering... I'm comfortably inside the limit, but the amount I've used isn't coming off my allowance according to the website either... so it looks like they aren't metering the metered access????

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth buddy

Ponter Boddit said:

I'm on the pay as you go, all you can eat data and I don't have any problems except that it is very slow between 3PM and 12PM.
I do use a VPN on my PC though.

I use 2 phones as hot spots-

A Note 2 with a custom Rom - Jellybean 4.12 WanamLite Rom
A S3 with a custom Rom - Lolipop 5.1 Cyanogen Mod 12.1

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The reason why it's throttling you between 3pm and midnight is because traffic sense is in operation during these times find out more here ....

www.three.co.uk/traffic

and the actual traffic management policy

http://support.three.co.uk/mobiledo...e/our_network/TrafficSense_facts_document.pdf

It's worth adding about traffic sense also.... It isn't JUST running during 3pm till midnight it's running 24/7 we all just notice it because of P2P most people don't even notice it but then again it depends on how many users are on your mast in other words how congested it is, capacity, bandwidth going through the mast, and how many users are demanding data from the mast it all adds up and will all effect how traffic sense works.

Three will detect you through loads of ways here's just some methods they can use;

- IMEI's
- BIA ID's such as MAC ID's / Serial numbers
- Techniques such as DPI (Deep packet inspection - incase you didn't know Three UK uses layer 7)
- User agent/strings
- Protocol and ports
- IP - NSlookups, geolocations etc... (I.E If you're connected to microsoft update servers from a android device it's a little obvious)
- IP's assigned..... Remember each device has a internal IP address - you're connected to the same network as the mast think about it for a second..... Oh wait.... Network Discovery

The above was just a short list as I couldn't be bothered to write anymore but you get the point there's many ways... But unfortunately for the 'normal users' they can ALL BE BYPASSED.

I say unfortunately because it's people who like are on this thread who abuse the 'Unlimited' data and unlimited tethering plans for everyone. This is the reason Three UK had to stop the unlimited tethering because people like you all was hammering the network and making it more congested than it already is... and you'll eventually grind it to a halt for everyone else in your area.

Don't get me wrong i've tethered 100's of GB's on Three but I do it once in a blue moon not every single day (and i do it past midnight) so less users are going to be effected.

and yes I know how to bypass any tethering restriction on any UK network but will I tell anyone? No.

A Three user.

Well cheers for that Brian!!

funkylogik said:

Well cheers for that Brian!!

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Believe me you'll thank me one day.

Doubt it but ok

psionandy said:

Hmm thats odd... I'm on a three contract which includes tethering... I'm comfortably inside the limit, but the amount I've used isn't coming off my allowance according to the website either... so it looks like they aren't metering the metered access????

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It's 'The One Plan' and it won't last... You'll be forced off it after your minimum term has expired...

The sim onlys will be notified very soon as they are due to expire in July.

Contracts are not limited there's a soft cap of '1000GB' but PAYG users are limited to 1000GB once you hit that PAYG users will have the data part removed for excessive use.

http://support.three.co.uk/SRVS/CGI...nternetapps,varset_subcat=3583,Case=obj(3833)

"All you can eat data gives you worry free internet use. Even if you used your phone for every minute of every day you could only use, subject to TrafficSense™, around 1000GB each month. We may use this cap to identify inappropriate use of the service, such as commercial use, which isn't permitted under our terms and conditions."