Thread: Jailbroken Again (how TRUE internet tethering works... kind of)

So I just made the discovery of the century. Well. Not really, but I ~have~ uncovered something that may interest all of you out there who own an iPad or iPhone with TRUE services.

Because y'all like to share your internet connection with your laptop, right?

As it turns out, True (and this just happened recently) THROTTLES the connection, somehow -- IF -- you connect your iPhone/iPad to your computer via the usual plug n' play method: using "Personal Hotspot" (which is basically just internet tethering with a trademark) on the iDevice.

So for example, you're getting 5 megabits per second on your iDevice -- when you connect it to a computer, the computer's connection gets sheared down to a paltry 0.05 megabits per second. Hell yeah. On the iDevice however, you're still getting 5 megabits.

This is where Jailbreaking comes in handy.

Now I ~thought~ I'd given up Jailbreaking, but this new dilemma had me firing up Redsn0w faster than you can say "TrueSucksFuckingBalls". Using this nifty app called MyWi, I used internet tethering -- through USB, the same interface I had been using with "Personal Hotspot". The results? I get the full 5 megabits per second on my computer as I do on the iPhone.

The experiment above was with a TRUE WIFI hotspot. However, the same applies to a TRUE 3G connection, although the throttle doesn't seem as extreme -- rather, it seems just halved.

I can only assume this has something to do with TRUE telling me "We're upgrading our system to make it better for our customers". Makes sense. They don't want you to get the full benefits on a tethered device; they want to sell more iPads; they want to make browsing really really fast on their iDevices so it looks good for the iDevices; they don't want to rob iDevice users of a fast connection because the guy next door is bit torrenting porn onto his laptop with his 3G connection.

Also it seems, for the first time, I've actually been throttled down to a fucking measly 0.05 Mbps for exceeding the 2GB limit. I got 3GB before they did that though :P But just note that TRUE is definitely stepping up it's snooping and cracking down on bandwidth usage.

As for "True H". It's bullshit. It's TRUE telling you "Hey, pay us 300 fucking baht more so we can give you the same service you sign up for previously in the first place". If you look at it, it's exactly the same shit. Oh -- pay 400 baht more and you get an increase to your bandwidth limit -- 5GB rather than 2GB. But exceed that and you're fucked to 0.3Mbps. I guess that might be better than the 0.05 Mbps I'm stuck with for the rest of the month, but I really can't tell you that. It could well be exactly the same 0.05 Mbps that 'regular' TRUE customers get shafted with.

So TRUE doesn't want you to tether your iDevice, really -- but they don't want to ban it outright either. That would just make you Jailbreak straight away, now wouldn't it? With throttling, unsuspecting users will think it's just the 'damn, slow connection', and they won't really think about using JB apps to correct the problem.

But now you know, so go do yourselves a favour.

@Baksiidaa: With regards to AT&T, I've read that Androids get throttled, but there's a way around it by changing your APN and switching from LTE (4G) to 3G. This only works if you're on 4G! Otherwise from my reading, if you're on 3G, you're screwed and will just have to accept it.

But it's the same with iPhone users.

There's really no real way around throttling. At best you can try to mask your data downloads (i.e. torrents) by encrypting the data, but even that's not guaranteed to work. You might do better with a tunneling service like BTGuard but they charge a pretty steep fee (and it just feels... illegal).


@Tungsten: Whatever TRUE is using to detect internet tethering seems to only work if you use the iDevice's built-in tethering (Personal Hotspot). So this would mean MyWi uses something different. Whatever it is though -- certainly bypasses whatever TRUE uses for detection! Perhaps Cthulu can explain it; he seems (I use that word lightly) to know the the inner workings of these things.

There are no settings to divide the bandwidth between the iDevice and the computer in MyWi. It's all done automatically (behind the scenes), but aside from USB, MyWi can also broadcast your 3G connection through wifi, essentially becoming a personal hotspot. iPhone 4/s and the new iPads have been able to do this, but Apple conveniently left THAT feature out for us on older iDevices!