topic Smart benefits and Hot Spot in Archived Posts

Smart benefits and Hot Spot

Mike2266 — Thu, 05 Aug 2021 08:29:58 GMT

I have data pass as my smart benefit, does anyone know if this works with personal hotspot?

Re: Smart benefits and Hot Spot

Chris_B — Thu, 05 Aug 2021 08:39:34 GMT

@Mike2266 Yes it does, but It wasn’t designed to be used in this way.

Re: Smart benefits and Hot Spot

Ayshan — Thu, 12 Aug 2021 14:17:48 GMT

Does this mean that i can use my video pass to watch netflix on my laptop and it won't eat into my plan data?

Re: Smart benefits and Hot Spot

mikeliuk — Thu, 12 Aug 2021 14:42:05 GMT

Hi @Ayshan ,

In theory, yes and this is because of the way the hotspot works (NAT). Unless the service provider inspects your traffic, the traffic appears to originate from the hotspot device and not the laptop behind it so if there is no change to how the service provider categorizes your traffic, the Netflix laptop traffic will count under the Video Pass.

In the future, the service provider could legitimately differentiate between Netflix watched on a mobile phone app versus Netflix watched via a laptop so it's worth keeping an eye on your data usage to ensure you don't get a shock.

Someone would actually need to do some work to make such a differentiation and the service provider may decide there is no reason to make such a change if their costs stay as they are.