For mobile-first networks

CarrierPigeon

A modern successor to paired-phone tethering. CarrierPigeon lets your desktop (macOS or Windows) route through your paired phone (iOS or Android) in a way that is fast, battery-efficient, and indistinguishable from native on-device traffic — powered end-to-end by WireGuard.

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Overview

CarrierPigeon is a two-part app: a desktop companion that runs on your Mac or Windows PC, and a phone companion that runs on your paired iPhone or Android device. Together they open a WireGuard tunnel between the two devices — over Personal Hotspot Wi-Fi, USB tether, or Bluetooth PAN — and re-emit your desktop's traffic out of the phone's native networking stack.

The result is a tether that behaves, from the carrier's perspective, like traffic originating on the phone itself: correct TTL, no hotspot fingerprint, aggressive DNS leak protection, and screen-off battery efficiency.

How it works

On iOS, the companion terminates a WireGuard server inside an NEPacketTunnelProvider, then forwards flows back out over cellular. On Android, the equivalent is a VpnService bound to a foreground service.
The desktop companion (macOS or Windows) configures the local WireGuard client, sets TTL to 65 (so the phone's +1-hop decrement lands at the native-looking 64), and locks DNS to a safe resolver to prevent leaks.
On iOS, flows are re-originated at Layer 4 so each desktop connection leaves the phone as a brand-new socket with no tether fingerprint.

What CarrierPigeon is not

CarrierPigeon is not a commercial VPN service. We do not operate exit nodes, do not terminate your traffic on DeadStick-owned servers, and do not anonymize you on the public internet. Your exit point is your own phone on your own cellular plan. You remain fully responsible for how you use the connection and for complying with your carrier's terms of service.

How your data is handled

CarrierPigeon never sees the contents, destinations, or metadata of your traffic — that traffic flows directly between your two devices and then out of your phone's own networking stack. Local configuration (WireGuard keys, paired-device identifiers) is stored on your devices in the system keychain. See the privacy policy for the complete treatment.

Platforms

Desktop: macOS 14 Sonoma or later · Windows 11.
Phone: iOS 17 or later · Android 12 or later.