Report on using Orange Mobicarte in France

[drama queen]

Originally Posted by wco81

Is the mobicarte only for phones?

Can you use with Mifi devices?

What is the throttled speed?

It is clearly intended for phones. I used it in an Android SGS2. I didn't try it in any other device - I suspect it would work from an access perspective, but the limitations on tethering would render it useless in a dongle or MiFi device. On the last day of my trip, I decided to try tethering to see if it was just a threat - or if the restriction is for real. I set my phone to become a WiFi Hotspot and tethered my Android tablet to it. Tethering was blocked. This has never happened to me on any other network. Even though I was using another Android device, I was blocked. I also tried Skype and it was also blocked, as stated. I guess that Orange must be using some form of Deep Packet Inspection to identify the applications?

It might be worth trying to use a VPN to get around this blocking? The VPN client would need to be active in the phone so as to hide all data payload from Orange's deep-packet-inspection. They might not block VPNs because they are validly used by business users accessing their corporate networks? I don't know whether it is possible to get WiFi tethering to hook into a VPN tunnel?

Despite the limitations - once it was set up - I found the Mobicarte excellent for my stay in France. The Orange coverage and capacity is generally very good. I had WiFi in hotels in the evenings - so mobile use was mainly for maps, apps and web-browsing during the day. Gmail app. worked fine.