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.

[woody1]

I was able to tether freely on Orange in France when I was there in 2009. I can't remember if I tethered any time after that. I guess they tightened up their detection since then.

I would be curious to find out if anybody has tried using a VPN to circumvent the detection. If anybody has a chance, try it and post the results here.

[woody1]

Originally Posted by drama queen

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.

Just to clarify, are you able to tether this particular phone on other networks? On my AT&T Galaxy S3, tethering was originally blocked on the phone software until I patched it to make it work.

Also, as I mentioned before, I wonder if connecting through a VPN would circumvent the tethering restriction. Has anybody tried that?

[drama queen]

Originally Posted by woody1

Just to clarify, are you able to tether this particular phone on other networks? On my AT&T Galaxy S3, tethering was originally blocked on the phone software until I patched it to make it work.

Also, as I mentioned before, I wonder if connecting through a VPN would circumvent the tethering restriction. Has anybody tried that?

I have no problem using my Android Galaxy S2 in mobile hotspot mode on other networks for tethering other devices such as my Android tablet. I couldn't get this to work on Orange in France. However, I only tried it in the airport on my last day, as I didn't want to get cut off by trying it earlier. My test may have been flawed for some reason. My phone was able to browse the Internet ok in the airport, and the tablet connected to the phone ok - but stalled when trying to browse. Perhaps they detected that I had two devices connected, and only permitted the first device to connect? Maybe if I had not tried to browse with my phone, the tablet might have worked?