Hotspot Limit

[dufchick]

Hi Everyone

Lightening took out my internet on Sun. Comcast appointment later in the week. I have been using my hotspot but I got a warning from T mob that I was nearing my limit for hotspot usage although I have unlimited data. Is there a way to get internet on my MacBook Pro From my iPhone 6s+ without using the hotspot? Thanks

Allison

 

[chscag]

Hi Everyone

Lightening took out my internet on Sun. Comcast appointment later in the week. I have been using my hotspot but I got a warning from T mob that I was nearing my limit for hotspot usage although I have unlimited data. Is there a way to get internet on my MacBook Pro From my iPhone 6s+ without using the hotspot? Thanks

Allison

Hi Allison:

No, I'm afraid not. But I don't understand the warning from T-Mobile about limiting data usage when using the hot spot feature of your iPhone. I have T-Mobile as the carrier for my wife and I and have on occasion had to use the hot spot when our Internet was out. We have gone days on end using the hot spot and never a warning from T-Mobile. You might want to call their customer service and inquire about that. It seems your data plan may not be as unlimited as you thought.

As an after thought, try attaching your iPhone 6s+ to your MacBook Pro via USB and then see if you can select the phone from available WiFi connections from your WiFi menu at the top of the screen. I usually do our hot spot that way. Maybe it makes a difference?

 

[dufchick]

I will try both suggestion right now. Thanks!!!

 

[MacInWin]

Charlie, I just got back from a trip using my iPhone as hotspot. I used a USB cable to attach to the Mac, then turned on hotspot on the phone, went to network settings in System Preferences and there was a USB connection showing that then worked to connect me to the iPhone via the cable instead of Wifi. That then left the WiFi on the iPhone to connect to the hotel system or cellular service. (I had to do that because for some reason when I tried connecting the MBP directly to the hotel WiFi I never got the login dialog to enter the required password. Wasn't worth doing a lot of troubleshooting, I just wired up the phone, let it connect [and show the password dialog] and use that to get out to the internet.) The key thing was that there was a USB connection to use to get to the iPhone.

 

[dufchick]

First although I have unlimited data, my package has a 10gb limit for the hotspot. Luckily when I checked it says it will reset tomorrow so I am good there. I am at 80% and cannot fall asleep without the tv on so yea, I might go over a tiny bit. I did the USB connection and that worked well. Thank you!!!!

 

[chscag]

Okay, maybe the USB connection won't use up as much of your hotspot data as before. By the way, 10GB for a hot spot is quite a bit of data, however, when you start streaming things like TV or YouTube, that data gets used up fast. My wife is on YouTube all the time but our unlimited plan seems to be generous since we have never received a warning from T-Mobile.

 

[chscag]

Charlie, I just got back from a trip using my iPhone as hotspot. I used a USB cable to attach to the Mac, then turned on hotspot on the phone, went to network settings in System Preferences and there was a USB connection showing that then worked to connect me to the iPhone via the cable instead of Wifi.

Basically that's what we do which is probably why T-Mobile has not complained about us going over a data limit. My wife is on YouTube probably 4 hours or more a day. And with this pandemic keeping folks at home, I imagine the carriers are all mulling over the amounts of data that are being used by subscribers.

 

[MacInWin]

Well, in about a week of use for streaming music, online mapping and GPS, plus use as a hotspot for routine internet (no streaming video, just news, email, social media, etc), we used 10 GB or so. I was surprised by that until I thought about the on demand maps and the autostart videos on some websites. She did use the hotspot for her laptop while we were driving along, which may have added significantly as she does some blogging and so had to upload images/videos to the blog. I wasn't concerned because it all reset yesterday and my bucket got refilled.

 

[dufchick]

Update: Internet back on hallelujah. Before that happened it took all of 5 minutes to use the remaining 20% of my data. Now that the nightmare of no internet is over, I found out I could have been streaming Netflix without using any data. Live and learn. Thanks for the help here, much appreciated!!