How would the carrier know if you tether or not?
 

Well, this is my first post, as I just own the n770, but have to put it back in the shop, but will get it back soon(hopefully). I also plan on getting a data plan on my cell phone. Currently I have a Nokia 6620 w/ Cingular and no data plan. I do have some knowledge of how the internet work. But I can't seem to understand how would the carrier know if you tether your data or not. My Nokia 6620 is happened to be s60, aka symbian linux phone. So, if they just exam the packet, there is absolutely no way they would know if the data was requested from my 6620 or 770.
Can somebody tell me how this work?

From my meager knowledge of this I think the way a Carrier would know whether you are using the Phone itself or the Nokia 770 is by the way of the websites accessed. I have a Nokia 3650 Phone and a Nokia 770. Till about a few months back I could Bluetooth into the Phone using the Nokia 770 and surf the Web as I pleased. Then last month or so I found that I could not access the Internet using the Nokia 770 + Nokia 3650 any which way. I also found that T-Mobile (the Carrier I use) has a new Data Plan for $ 29.99 that would allow the Internet access. This would obviously mean that T-mobile found out that some people use their Symbian Phones together with a Handheld to access the Internet and decided to sell such service and make money instead of allowing such access freely. But this along with a Phone Plan is expensive.

I am miffed at the fact that T-Mobile stopped such access yet the charge of my plan did not decrease any which way. My logic for saying this is that, before (when I just had the phone and no Nokia 770) there were no issues. Now that they found that I access the Internet via the Nokia 770 using the phone they blocked it. So essentially they took of an option from my total Phone Service. But it is my phone time and is paid for. It is not as if T-Mobile says ohh this customer is only accessing the Internet and that too using his own Phone Plan and Time, so we have no problem.

Also the fact that using the phone and its Internet capability alone I think one can only access specific websites, normally the Carrier supported ones. When the Nokia 770 is used to access random websites in a random/ specific order, the Carrier finds this out by the activity on and of the Network. :mad: :mad:

i would imagine the request headers are what the provider is reading in order to determine the device/browser that is making the request. i could only guess that having a NAT/MANGLE proxy on the phone would disguise the source requester so as to hide the fact that one is using a different device to cruise the web.

another reason open source phones will be harder to find in the anti-consumer markets perpetuated by BigBusiness...

BTW, Symbian Series 60 has bugger all to do with Linux.

Just being pedantic, that's all...

In the cases I know of (Imode and WAP) you must go through a proxy operated by the carrier, and that proxy essentially looks at the user-agent presented by the phone's browser to determine if it's allowed through. If you tether the 770 and change Opera's user-agent by way of a local proxy (like Privoxy), things generally work.

In the UK, T-mobile terms and conditions make it clear that you can't use the phone as a modem unless you sign up to a more expensive tarriff. If the T's & C's have changed since you began your contract, T-mobile should have contacted you - if not you may have been violating the T's&C's and now they've caught you and restricted your access?

:mad: :( :mad:
The fact that the T's & C's have indeed changed is the truth. T-Mobile never cared (and still does not ) to inform me about this. I know this because 2-3 months before (if I am correct ) I am positive that there was no " T-Mobile Internet " ( the $ 29.99 Data Plan) idea. It was when T-Mobile found that too many people were using the Phone as a Modem that they introduced this plan and at the same time blocked Access. I still have access to T-Mobile Website when I use the GPRS option within the phone. If I tether the phone and use it as a GPRS Modem, no Website can be accessed.

I am willing to believe that they caught on to the idea that I was using the phone as a Modem, but if I had this plan for last 3 years and was paying the same amount of money, should it not mean that by restricting the access now, I have been gypped ? I say this because now also I have the same Phone Plan and am paying the same amount of money for a plan in which the option of use has been restricted further. This then has to mean that now, I am paying more for lesser Service/Access.

Not that I really care, it is simply the principles involved. :( :mad: :(

Whenever I try to access a website (using the The Nokia 770 to bluetooth into the Nokia 3650 Phone ) I get the following.

ERROR

The requested URL coul not be retrieved

While trying to retrieve ther URL: http://www.accuweather.com/

The following error was encountered:

Access Denied.

Access control configuration prevents your request from being allowed at this time.
Please contact your service provider if you feel this is incorrect.
Your cache administrator is root

Generated Fri, 22 Dec 2006 16:26:52 GMT by svtatl10(squid/2.5 STABLE3)


On a better ( happier ?) note, take a look at the following website. It gives some good insights about various carriers and their Data plans in USA.

twelveblackcodemonkeys.com/mobile_data_plan_comparisons_for_smartphones.htm

From what I heard, It seem like what brendan said. They have a big proxy server and look at all the request header, and try to determined if it's the phone or not. Does anyone have experience accessing internet other than web browsing? like FTP, telnet, ssh, VPN? I think we all know that web browsing alone isn't the internet, but I have a feeling that the carrier don't know that. From my point of view, I have problem with the fact they determined what application they allow to use online rather rather than if I tether or not. What if I have some weird software or apps that I wrote myself on my s60. Maybe I should look if there is a proxy server app for my s60.

Making the Web work is the easy, 770-only step. For the other protocols you need OpenVPN, which can also chain through a proxy while changing the user-agent. It's quite something else though, and you also need an endpoint for your VPN tunnel, eg a private box on a home DSL line or such...

i think it is more of how much data is accessed. the phone browsing dont use that much data to transmit and receive, however using a full browser, it passes and receives several megs or more.

Normally, your phone is not set up to use the same "access point" than the 770. Look in your GPRS/Data settings. That's how it works.

mine does using cingular media net. only way i figure the way they know is the amount of data being transfered

The newer phones (wm5 aku 3 smartpones) no longer have Dun and instead use usb or bt pan for tethering thru internet connection sharing. This should mean tthe same AP should be used. Tethering is sweet with my new blackjack but the 3g is rough on battery life. Lately, ive been forcing my phone to edge only an since it is only about 80kbps less on mspeed test than the new high speed on the 770 via bt, i might keep it that way

Tmobile Data Plans
 

I will try this but I am waiting for my 770 to come back from repair. I canceled my data plan when I sent in my 770 so it will be a good test.

Internet access at Tmobile is 29.99, the sidekick data plan is 20$. If you log in to the my-tmobile web page you can set your phone as a sidekick, then you can go to acount and change to add the sidekick data plan. Do they have a way to know your not using a sidekick? Would this work as a normal data plan. Anyone else tried this?

My first one year contract with tmobile is up in January, I loathe tmobile, Any suggestions on carriers Cingular or Verizon or Sprint? Need family plan 3 phones + internet.

That is not the way it works on GPRS or UMTS service. Each connection defines what is called an "APN". For example, on Vodafone Germany I need to use "web.vodafone.de" to access the Internet while the phone comes set up to "wap.vodafone.de" to access Vodafone internal services.

Once again I have been able to use my Nokia 770 + Nokia 6682 to get to the Internet. This is with a Basic Plus Plan from T-Mobile. I do not have a Data Plan of any kind whatsoever. About 15 minutes ago, I tested my mobile connection speed at '' testmy.net '' and clocked a decent 123 Kbps down and 74 Kbps up. This is so much better then the connection speed using the Nokia 3650. To get to the Internet with this basic plan, I simply mucked around and deleted the Proxy Server name and the Proxy Port Number from the Advanced Connectivity Settings of the Nokia 770. :) :D ;)

Merry Christmas to you all.

According to the scriptural description of the brahmand the entire earth planet is called Bharatvarsh, but particularly the area of the continent that lies south of the Himalayas is called Bharatvarsh. It is also called Aryavart. The inhabitants of Aryavart are called the Aryans as referred to in the Rigved. Thus, the words Bhartiya or Aryans were both used for the inhabitants of Bharatvarsh or Aryavart, however, the words Bhartiya and Bharatvarsh were more popular

Ajun which are you referring to as your location? Where are you in the USA?

Arjun I also have a 770 plus 6682, the funny thing I think the 770 is more stable than that phone. Anyway I have used Tmobile data plan, the 5.99 plan, no plan. I use to be able to have no plan, and use getmorespeed.voicestream.com 8080, and get online (proxy). Then that stopped working. I now use the Tmobile 5.99 plan, with the 216.155.165.50 proxy. I can get online and surf and use Maemo-mapper.


So are you saying you have no plan, no tzones and you can get online with no proxy?

Given the newness of the network here, I won't argue about it. However, it appears that only one ap (wap.cingular.??? and isp.cingular.??? depending on the plan the is set as default on the phone and connection pooling is used instead. In this case EDGE and UTMS (HSDPA actually)

BharatVarsha, the Land of the King Bharata, the brother of Lord Rama, the final incarnation of Lord Vishnu, the Redeemer. BharatVarsha, the land of the great Hindu people as well. So, Yes the land lying South of the great Himalayas is the land of my origin and I am a Bharatiya. Right now I am in North Eastern USA.

But I sure am not a Hindu. :)

:D

Now, the plan that I have is the ' basic of the basic ', Cellular Voice Plan. That is the T-Mobile ' Basic Plus ' Plan ( $29.99 - 300 Minutes, and Weekends Unlimited). So that total with Taxes comes up to about $ 35+ or so per months ( if I do not yap too much on the phone). I do not have any added ' Data plan ' or ' T-Mobile Internet ' or anything else for that matter.

It is the " getmorespeed.voicestream.com " , Proxy Server name and the Proxy Port number " 8080 ", that I took out from the ' Advanced Connectivity Settings ' of the Nokia 770. I did not input anything else in place of the Proxy Server Address and the Proxy Port Number.


An update ( 9.55 am - 12/27/06) Now I can access my hotmail account and look at my emails without issues. I do not have to do (change the MTU and MRU ) anything specific for this. This is via the Nokia 3650 Phone GPRS.



:) ;)