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Can T-Mobile Really Distinguish Between SIM Card Usage in a Phone vs. a Router? (alien.top)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

16 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hi everyone,

I'm in a bit of a unique and challenging situation regarding internet access and would really appreciate some insights from this community.

I live in an area with limited internet options – no fiber and subpar 5G connectivity. The only available wired internet is via an outdated telephone line, offering a mere 2mb download speed, which is far from sufficient for my needs. My job involves sending and downloading large files regularly, often exceeding 100GB, so a fast and reliable internet connection is crucial.

Currently, I'm using T-Mobile's Mobile Unlimited plan on my phone, which gives me about 50mb download speed. It is called „L Nielimitowana” (I'm from Poland). It's manageable but not ideal, especially since I need to keep my phone constantly connected to my PC. This setup is far from ideal for my work.

I approached T-Mobile about a 5G router plan, but they informed me that they don't offer 5G router plans in areas with suboptimal connections to avoid providing unsatisfactory service. However, they did propose an alternative: getting a second SIM card with unlimited 5G internet at half the price of my current plan. But here's the catch – the representative and the contract clearly state that this SIM card will not work in a mobile router, only in phones.

This brings me to my main questions for you knowledgeable folks:

Is it true that T-Mobile (or other carriers) can distinguish if a SIM card is being used in a router instead of a phone? If so, how do they do it?

Are there any workarounds or specific types of routers that might bypass this limitation?

Having a router with this type of internet would be a game-changer for me, so any advice, insights, or experiences you can share would be immensely helpful.
Thanks in advance!

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Oh yeah I forgot to ask, do you use iphone or android?

If you use iphone you need to run a little script in the background to stop the phone asking for you to trust the connection and stopping the link every so often. I've added it for others that might search this solution later....

#!/bin/sh
# Make iPhone tethering stay alive on OpenWrt

# After you successfully trusting the iPhone for tethering, copy files with name like
# /var/lib/lockdown/12345678-9ABCDEF012345678.plist to /etc/lockdown/locks.
# That way, you won't have to set up trust again after router reboots.
if [ -e /etc/lockdown ]
then
mkdir -p /var/lib/lockdown
cp -f /etc/lockdown/* /var/lib/lockdown/
fi

# lockdown records restored, now we can launch usbmuxd. Don't launch it sooner! (this is run from inet.d)
usbmuxd

# We are up and running now. But unfortunately if your carrier signal is weak, iPhone will
# drop connection from time to time and you'd have to unplug and replug USB cable to start tethering
# again. Script below automates that activity.

# First wait a bit - we just brought the interface up by usbmuxd
sleep 60

# If we see iPhone ethernet interface, try to ping iPhone router's address (172.20.10.1).
# When the ping is unsuccessful, rebind iPhone ethernet USB driver and wait for things to settle down
while :
do
for i in /sys/bus/usb/drivers/ipheth/*:*
do
test -e "${i}" || continue
ping -w 3 172.20.10.1 &> /dev/null
if [ "${?}" -ne 0 ]; then
echo "${i##*/}" > "${i%/*}"/unbind
echo "${i##*/}" > "${i%/*}"/bind
sleep 15
fi
done
sleep 1
done
EOF