My phone contract allows for 2GB of tethered data allowance. How are they able to measure this?

 

I use an iPhone which I connect to my Macbook or occasionally iPad which I use for internet surfing and remote desktop connection. No idea how much I use as I can't find a way of measuring the usage and my mobile account only shows data used above my allowance which I've never gone over. Reason I ask is that I am going to be becoming more mobile so will be using this connection more. Any help gratefully accepted.

I guess source IP of the traffic won't be the phone or there will be something else in the packet headers identifying the data as not originating on the phone.

My phone contract allows for 2GB of tethered data allowance. How are they able to measure this?

I use an iPhone which I connect to my Macbook or occasionally iPad which I use for internet surfing and remote desktop connection. No idea how much I use as I can't find a way of measuring the usage and my mobile account only shows data used above my allowance which I've never gone over. Reason I ask is that I am going to be becoming more mobile so will be using this connection more. Any help gratefully accepted.

I believe it uses a different APN for tethered data on the iPhone. So tethered data is sent through a different server.

On the iPhone you can see tethered data usage in

Settings - mobile data - system services (at the bottom) - personal hotspot

Just need to reset it every so often.

Edited 21 November, 20169 yr by gullyg

Cheers Gully, I had looked there but check again and sync it to my billing date.

They'll see a second device MAC behind your known mobile one.

I'm assuming you can't mask the MAC address?