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I'd love to tether, but don't because my carrier (AT&T) won't enable it for a single device, only for all accounts on my family plan. My family could easily (even innocently) use up our monthly data allotment in a day.

Also, how can you limit data usage while tethering? Can a device tell if it's tethered, or does it just assume it has a normal wifi connection? Do you need to turn off automatic updates on laptops?

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The short answer is yes Windows typically does know it is on a metered connection and doesn't do anything like update downloading. If it doesn't automatically detect it you can also mark that connection as being a metered connection and it will remember it. I'm not sure about tethering but when using built-in LTE you can even set what your plan limit is.

Not every modem can be marked as a metered connection. I'm using one such modem right now. And Windows decides at whim to ignore metered connection settings.

None of this is solved by having a modem in your computer though.

Though Windows 10 does let you mark a connection as metered, though I don't think anything except the OS pays attention to that. But again, that's orthogonal to whether your laptop has a modem and will likely not be solved.

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