my isp has add on plans that can supposedly know if im using an xbox, certain games or a ps.
how do they detect this? And is there a way to, for example, use the playstation bundles on xbox? (they offer more quota)
https://imgur.com/a/Vjk3jOU images of the bundles
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If you are using your ISPs device as your router, they see the MAC (hardware) address of each device on your wired and wireless network and know the make of each.
If you substitute your own router, the MAC isn’t passed through and they’d have a tougher time knowing exactly how many and what kind of devices are in your home network.
Additionally, some routers (and all OpenWRT routers) can run a “full tunnel VPN” client, obfuscating your traffic from your ISP’s deep packet inspection and preventing them from enumerating your internal clients.
MAC addresses are specific to manufacturers as well.
they route your traffic, they know where it’s going.
Nothing to do with routing … the first part of a L2 MAC address is the OUI… organizationally unique identifier… so they know the device type.
If I’m reading that image correctly, it looks like the ISP may be in Egypt? Telecom Egypt - We Space - Gaming Bundles.
That doesn’t change your question or the answer, but it’s interesting to note that Sony and Microsoft likely have formed agreements with TelecomEgypt to offer these plans. We could speculate about the details of what those private corp-to-corp agreements might look like, or whether we think it’s morally acceptable to do it; but regardless of all that it’s probably legal and it is part of the reality we live in.
As others have pointed out, when you are using a router provided by your ISP, the ISP can identify the devices on your network. If you choose to use your own router, the ISP still may be able to identify traffic that is directed towards particular gaming servers, although the ISP might choose to only honor the gaming bundle pricing if you use their router. I don’t know anything about the details, but it may be that Sony and Microsoft provide a list of destination addresses that identify which games are being played, making it easy for the ISP to identify those particular games when the ISP-owned router routes a request either to those servers or to other servers that aren’t covered by the gaming bundle. It’s also possible that the ISP may not even bother to try to understand which devices are using the network, and instead simply assume that requests routed to the listed destinations are covered by the bundle.