What is the difference between cellular data being used on my phone and cellular data being used on my notebook? Data is data.

  • IamAnonymous@lemmy.worldEnglish
    85·
    8 months ago

    It’s to stop people from abusing unlimited data on their cellphone for all their WiFi devices at home. I know a person who did not have WiFi at home and only used their cellphone data. You are using more than a typical cellphone user and also you are cutting them from an opportunity to sell you a WiFi plan for your home. It’s annoying, but as I understand it, this is the reason.

      • IamAnonymous@lemmy.worldEnglish
        74·
        8 months ago

        It’s unlimited data for your phone and not for all the devices you can connect to. I agree with your sentiment. Just trying to point what the companies have in their ToS. I will be glad to hotspot to all my devices from my phone and not pay for WiFi.

      • whoreticulture@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        8 months ago

        This might not apply everywhere, but I live in a rural area and actually most of my Internet used is through cell networks. When there are a lot of people in the area for some reason, I’m much more likely to lose service completely for web and calls.

        I don’t think that a reliable network is the reason why communications companies are limiting people’s data, I think they’re doing it for profit, but it could be a rationale to do so. It’s not unreasonable to think that there can’t be “unlimited” anything without some kind of impact.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          4·
          8 months ago

          But isn’t limiting an unlimited service a form of false advertising? I’m sure they’d argue that a ToS was signed, but I don’t know that you can legally bind people to accept a false advertisement.

          • whoreticulture@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            8 months ago

            Yeah you don’t have to make that point to me. I’m just saying there could be a legitimate reason to want to make service limits. Obviously, if they really wanted to limit service to prevent network outages, I wouldn’t be getting network outages 😂😭

    • starman2112@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      21·
      8 months ago

      You are using more than a typical cell phone user

      But it still costs the ISP effectively nothing to send those 1s and 0s. This is like complaining about someone having a bunch of fans on because they’re using more air than the average person.