"Unlimited" on Virgin Mobile means up to 3.5Gb. After that, your speed will be cut to 384k for the rest of the month.


http://store.virginmedia.com/the-leg...r-service.html

See under "Virgin Media Mobile Acceptable Use Policy Pay Monthly"

If you want a genuine unlimited data tariff with no hidden caps or speed limits, Three is the only option I can think of.

Thanks , why dont there staff have this information - ridiculous

I wish 3 had service around here but its terrible, im not in the best area but im not in the sticks and the one reliable signal round here is EE.

Voda are the worst (no signal at home or work) , then 02 (although the data service is virtually non existent) , never tried 3 but signal checker doesn't look positive - Orange/EE has been fine but expensive

maybe i will try 3,i have a look at what tehy offer again - thanks

might even check the sim only tarriffs from EE / orange has to be cheaper than my current contract - trouble is they keep trying to sell me 4G lol

Also , does anyone know how they can tell if you are 'tethering' i have done this for years and not had problems with others

i just had a quick look and it seems a lot of people thing the analyze the services provided by the servers you connect to to check - this doesn't seem feasible to me

however my phones permanently routing all data via an SSL tunnel so all they would see is encrypted packets.

interested to know if anyone can tell me , the connecting hardware address will still be the same

maybe any data pushed through connection sharing is tagged in someway by android , and they pick up on this

There are lots of different ways depending on how networks detect it, it's best to stick the agreement you signed up to with the provider through as I'm sure people would be angry if the provider breached the contract.

Just large data use can be enough for some providers, especially if it's all VPN traffic and looks like you're trying to hide tethering. Number of hops, MTU, any other DNS and give-away traffic that isn't encrypted like a desktop AV service connecting with desktop user agent headers. There's lots of varied ways providers can tell, but you're better off playing fair and buying a tethering add-on, or getting put on to a plan that includes it if you want it.

The more people that cheat, the higher the likelihood that we'll all lose some of these unlimited data offers or packages and get more restrictions put in place

Most providers sell tethering plans if you want one, or you can get mifi devices with 15GB of data for a relativity small amount like £15 a month with a free mifi device.

Thanks for the reply,

I agree its not right to cheat , but i honestly didnt know about tethering issues until recently when i have been looking at these deals and the restrictions in details.

hops will always vary depending on where you are in the country with mobile connections, but the packets are always the same and always going to the same place, DNS goes to my own DNS server down the encrypted tunnel nothing goes out of the phone if VPN is not connected.

I just trying to work out if this has cloaked it or if i just haven't used it enough to be detected, i use a lot of data though always streaming audio from server to the car and streaming video and proxing all traffic across the VPN link no issues.

Would i be cheating if i streamed the video to an app on my phone and then pushed it to a DLNA tv - i can see a lot of grey lines , it is wasnt, what difference is it if it streamed it to a lpatop connected to the tv still the same data going across

anyway i think the 3.5gb cap has ruined it for me, shame as i with virgin for fiber anyway - going to keep looking around

they should keep it simple, unlimited sim regardless of what uses it (apart from business use rule, that i can see the logic in)

Hops to them, as the TTLs are reduced by 1 for each hop. Although the data is encrypted the IP protocol data is still there and can be subject to packet inspection.


It is unrealistic to giveaway unlimited data on all your devices, laptops, your families machines or on desktops where you're likely to be downloading full desktop games on steam of large sizes. The contract is for the phone, so the data is primarily for use on the phone. There is limited bandwidth available to transmit data in the air, so there has to be a compromise, the price you're paying doesn't include full home broadband, ir is for unlimited data use on the device you purchased from the network.

Some allow a small hotspot allowance, others just ban tethering. As I said for as little as £15 you can get a mifi contract with 15GB a month of data. That will supply you with 2 years of internet use at 15GB a month for £360 and that price includes the mifi device as well.

I called them to, was also told 3.5 GB. So i've filled in a ASA complaint as it states no where on the website relating to this product, even going through the ordering process, that it is capped.

This is all part of the near-shyster behaviour of this appalling company.

VM did in fact offer "truly unlimited" internet, as well as tethering - for all of a few months. This offer was introduced to great fanfare and heavy promotion under the banner of the "Unlimitacular" plan. The fact that this was a rival to the Three's One Plan, with truly AYCE data and with a discount for Virgin Media customers, was pushed heavily to those same VM customers (or mugs) like myself.

As a consequence I can't have been the only one who ditched a provider I was very happy with (in my case Orange) in the process rejecting decent retention deals offered by said provider, but who were then shafted a few months down the line by VM's retrospective withdrawal of the Unlimitacular benefits. Of course customers were given the option of cancelling their contracts, but those like me would have lost out heavily anyway, by virtue of no longer being eligible for the retention deals offered by their original provider. Neither can I have been the only one who for various reasons was not aware of the option until it was too late.

I notice that Virgin Mobile are the biggest VMNO at this moment in time. I can't help wondering how many of those customers are "Unliimitacular signups who like myself have been biding their time to leave ever since.

And on a side note that is why I would be very, very wary of accepting a retention deal with VM. If they can behave in that appalling way once, they can do it again. Has there ever been a case of a company axing heavily promoted special contract deals for both new AND existing customers in the same way before?

VPN is perfectly legal to use with your sim card inserted or via wifi.

But I find that I can't get VPN with my 3 sim in these days. Have 3 suddenly blocked VPN recently as I accessed in June with my 3 sim in.

I'm not convinced thst leople use VPN to consume a lot more data than they're entitled to.

The phone APN doesn't give you a public IP address, you get a 10.x.x.x if you use a Three mobile broadband service you'll be given a public IP address and you should have no problems using a VPN on a mobile broadband package. I am not sure on the mobile phone APN.

You can use 3internet on a phone SIM and get a public IP address, IIRC

Oh I know that, and it'll make the VPN work and get around any IPSec / NAT issues but if people are thinking of using a VPN to hide tethering then using a mobile broadband APN on a phone plan probably equally gives the game away!

Returning to the topic ( ) the data (and the reception) on Virgin is not all its cracked up to be anyway. It seems very strange to me, but even though Virgin uses the Orange/EE network it seems to me that the service is worse with Virgin. I've been right next to someone on Orange and I was surprised to find that the reception and data speeds were significantly worse on Virgin. I had a Galaxy S3 - their phone was the Orange smartphone that was released a few years back which I don't think was particularly high-end, so I'm assuming its not related to the phone.

I seem to remember this coming up before and someone explaining that Virgin really isn't as good as Orange even though they use the same network for some technical reason. I could be wrong though..

I had T-Mobile a few years ago and the signal was great where i live.

The wife was on Virgin until a few months ago and the signal was crap, dropped calls, silent calls, texts not coming through. She only has a 2g phone so moved her to giffgaff.