Would a VPN app on my phone prevent carrier from knowing I'm using the phone as a WiFi hot spot?

[PacificaBren]

I ask because my plan gives me unlimited high speed data, yet they place a limit on how much data I can use through my phone if it's acting as a WiFi hot spot.

We tend to have home ISP outages around here from time to time, so I do have to use my phone as a hot spot a few times per year, and usually only for one evening at a time.

I already have a VPN that I pay for and am happy with. If I put their app on my phone, will that prevent my wireless provider from being able to see the packets being transmitted, and thus prevent them from capping or throttling my hot spot usage?

I'm not trying to abuse this, mind you. Not trying to torrent the contents of an international film archive or anything. I just want to have uninterrupted Internet on my desktop computer even when we have ISP outages.

 

[svim]

A simple answer is no, your carrier is still going to be able to constrict your hotspot usage with or without you using a VPN service.

When you're using hotspotting, your phone is emitting a limited range WiFi signal that gets sourced from your phone's cellular connectivity. And that connectivity is managed and maintained by your carrier, it's taking place via their cellular network.
When you're using a VPN service on your phone, that's a different aspect. The IP address your phone is assigned gets hidden by the VPN provider, and it's the remote server's IP address that's exposed to the now toxic Internet. The VPN is essentially just a managed link between your phone and the Internet.
So two different networking services, a hotspot and a VPN, that are interrelated.but not dependent on each other at all. Each one has a different purpose.

 

[ocnbrze]

^^^^^this^^^^^

i could not have said it better.

if it was only that easy. your carrier will know if you use your hotspot....vpn or no vpn.