To use this in Win 10, open the Settings app, select Network & Internet, choose Wi-Fi, choose “Manage known networks,” pick your phone’s hotspot, select Properties and enable “Set as metered connection.”Īfter you set your carrier’s hotspot limit, Windows will download only priority system updates over that WiFi connection while holding up less vital downloads. Windows includes a feature in Windows 8 and 10 for this exact scenario: a “Metered Connection” option you can set for specific WiFi networks. Your phone will report how much data you’ve sacrificed for hotspot use in its Settings app: In iOS, tap the Cellular heading in Android, tap Data Usage and then “Cellular data usage.” But this information is more useful on the tethered computer, where you’re actually using that data.
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#MOBILE HOTSPOT PLANS PLUS#
To get LTE tethering, you need to pay $5 a month more for its T-Mobile One Plus add-on. Note that in T-Mobile’s normal unlimited plan, hotspot use never exceeds 3G speeds. T-Mobile and Verizon only say you’ll be throttled back to 3G speeds, which the research firm OpenSignal reported earlier this year averaged 4 Mbps at T-Mo and 0.85 Mbps at VzW. Exceed that cap, and “tethering” slows, sometimes to a painful degree.ĪT&T caps hotspot use past 10 GB to 128 kbps, while Sprint chokes it to 32 kbps (or you can buy extra full-speed use at $15 a gig). But now that the four big nationwide carriers all sell “unlimited” plans with much more generous quotas on mobile-hotspot use, sharing your phone’s connection with a laptop or desktop won’t necessarily doom you.īut you can still find yourself limited to painfully slow connections that may force you to trek to the nearest open WiFi hotspot.Īt AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile, their unlimited plans-more accurately called unmetered plans-limit hotspot use to 10 gigabytes. Four years ago, this would have been courting disaster.
![mobile hotspot plans mobile hotspot plans](https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1PtdhaRGw3KVjSZFwq6zQ2FXaz.jpg)
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How do I make sure I don’t exceed the 10-gigabyte cap on that feature?Ī. I’ve switched to using my phone’s mobile hotspot to connect my laptop to the Internet.