I have a vodem that is on a tablet share plan. It works when it feels like it, which is not that often. I thought there must be something wrong with it so I took the sim out and put it into a phone and started tethering off the phone. But this is not that reliable either. After a few days of tethering that worked, last evening nothing could connect except directly. At this point is looked very much like Vodafone was deliberately blocking tethering and vodems, which makes no real sense with the plan I am on (Red Essentials) as there are no restrictions like that on this plan and I have 6 GB of data.

After I emailed Vodafone, tethering started working again but has now stopped. Once again direct connection (i.e surfing the net one the phone itself) is still functional.

It looks very much like Vodafone just has some reason that from time to time they will just go around blocking tethering or vodems for no obvious reason and without prior warning, the result being a very unreliable data service.

Be aware if you get offered lots of data on your plan (and the tablet share options) as far as Vodafone is concerned they do not want you hooking up any other device via tethering or a USB vodem even wth the data cap. I can understand a restriction on the unlimited plans, but not on my plan which has a data cap and high costs for additional data (I used to exceed the limit quite regularly but this month will be the first time in forever that I am not paying excess data charges)