Did you know you could use your cell phone as a wireless router to provide internet access to your laptop, tablet, and other Wi-Fi devices? Android and iOS devices have this Wi-Fi hotspot feature built right in with the software.
Once the hotspot is configured, devices can connect to it just as easy as they can when connecting to any wireless network. They'll see the SSID and will need the custom password you chose during the hotspot setup.
Wi-Fi Hotspot Features
The Wi-Fi hotspot capabilities on the iPhone and Android are a type of tethering, but unlike other tethering options that work over USB or Bluetooth, you can connect multiple devices simultaneously.
Cost: To use the service, your cell phone needs to have a data plan on its own. Some wireless carriers include hotspot features for free (such as Verizon) but others might charge a separate tethering or hotspot plan, which might run you around $15/month. However, sometimes you can get around this extra charge by rooting or jailbreaking your smartphone and using a tethering app to turn it into a wireless mobile hotspot.
Here are the details for hotspot costs for some of the major cell phone carriers: AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint and U.S. Cellular.
Security: By default, the wireless network you set up with your smartphone is usually encrypted with strong WPA2 security, so unauthorized users can't connect to your devices. For added security, if you're not prompted to set up a password, go into the settings to add or change the password.
Downside: Using your phone as a wireless modem drains the battery life, so make sure you turn the Wi-Fi hotspot feature off after you're done using it. Also, see some other ways you can save battery when your phone is working as a hotspot.
Where to Find the Wi-Fi Hotspot Settings
The hotspot capability on smartphones are typically in the same area of the settings, and let you change similar options like the network name and password, and maybe even the security protocol.
Categories: Internet Access
In other languages:
Español: conectarse a Internet en la laptop a través de un celular, Português: se Conectar à Internet em seu Notebook Através do Celular, 中文: 在您的笔记本电脑通过手机连接到互联网, Italiano: Connettersi a Internet con il Portatile Tramite Cellulare, Русский: подключиться к Интернету с мобильного телефона, Nederlands: Je laptop verbinden met internet via je telefoon, Deutsch: Handy als WLAN Hotspot (Tethering) nutzen, Français: connecter un ordinateur portable à internet via un téléphone portable, Bahasa Indonesia: Menyambungkan Laptop ke Internet Melalui Ponsel, Tiếng Việt: Kết nối mạng cho máy tính thông qua điện thoại di động, العربية: الاتصال بالإنترنت من خلال هاتفك المحمول على جهاز كمبيوتر محمول, ไทย: แชร์เน็ตมือถือให้แล็ปท็อป, 日本語: 携帯電話を使ってノートパソコンをインターネットに接続する, 한국어: 휴대폰 데이터로 PC의 인터넷 쓰는 법, हिन्दी: सेलफोन के जरिये लैपटॉप पर इंटरनेट इस्तेमाल करें, Türkçe: Dizüstü Bilgisayarda Cep Telefonu Üzerinden İnternete Nasıl Bağlanılır
Practically all smartphones can tether, sharing their data connection with your other devices. You can do this over Wi-Fi, a USB cable, or Bluetooth — if your carrier lets you. You might have to pay extra.
You should be able to tether with your phone if it’s a smartphone with a mobile data connection. This includes iPhones, Android phones, Windows phone, BlackBerries, Firefox phones, and almost anything else.
Do Your Carrier and Cellular Plan Allow It?
RELATED:How to Use Your iPhone’s Personal Hotspot to Tether a PC or Mac
Whether you can tether doesn’t just depend on your phone itself. It depends on your cellular carrier, and the plan you have through them.
Even if you’re paying for data, that doesn’t necessarily mean you can use that data to tether. For example, let’s say you have a data plan that gives you 1 GB of mobile data per month. If this is the cheap, lowest-end plan, it’s possible your carrier won’t let you use that 1 GB for tethering purposes. On a carrier-provided Android phone or iPhone, the tethering option may be disabled. If you try to jailbreak on an iPhone or use third-party tethering apps on an Android phone to get around this limitation, they may block the tethered traffic from your laptop — it looks different from smartphone traffic — or helpfully add the tethering option to your account and start charging you for it.
You may have to pay an extra $5-$10 a month for tethering, or upgrade to a more expensive plan that just includes it. Tethering data may cost extra — for example, you might have an unlimited data plan that gives you unlimited mobile data to your smartphone, but only includes a few gigabytes of month of high-speed data when tethering. You can go out of your way to use less data on your computer when tethering. Check your cellular data plan or contact your carrier for more details.
Battery Life Considerations
RELATED:How to Tether Your Android Phone and Share Its Internet Connection with Other Devices
Tethering drains your smartphone’s battery life — the common type of Wi-Fi tethering, at least. Your phone has to use its Wi-Fi radio to operate a local Wi-Fi network your laptop, tablet, and other devices can connect to. It’ll then have to forward the traffic back and forth.
This can use quite a bit of battery life, so take that into account. Consider connecting your phone to a power source or bringing a portable battery pack to recharge it with. You could also just connect your phone to your laptop and draw power from your laptop.
Be sure to disable the portable hotspot feature when you’re not using it, too — only enable it when you need to tether with it. Remember that your phone’s battery will drain faster when using this feature and plan accordingly.
Wi-Fi, USB, and Bluetooth TetheringHow To Use A Hotspot
RELATED:How to Make Your Computer’s Browser Use Less Data When Tethering
There are several ways to tether. Most people normally think of the Wi-Fi hotspot feature, but you can also tether via a USB cable or wireless Bluetooth connection.
How to Tether
Tethering should be simple to enable and use. If your carrier is blocking it, you may not see the tethering option at all on your smartphone’s settings screen. For example, if you visit your iPhone’s settings screen and don’t see the Personal Hotspot option near the top, your carrier is blocking it. If the feature doesn’t work after you enable it, your carrier may just be blocking it on their end instead of disabling the option on your phone.
For example, on an iPhone, open the Settings screen and tap “Personal Hotspot” near the top — it should be below “Cellular” and above “Carrier.” On an Android phone, open the Settings screen and look for a feature named something like “Tethering & portable hotspot” — it may be in a different place depending on your phone’s manufacturer and what version of Android you’re using. You can also use third-party tethering apps on an Android phone.
On other types of phones, head to the Settings screen — there should be a clearly marked “tethering,” “mobile hotspot,” or similarly named feature.
You might wonder why you often have to pay extra for tethering. After all, if you’re paying for a certain amount of mobile data, why can’t you use it for anything you want? The generally agreed upon reason is because you’re more likely to actually use that data you’re paying for if you’re tethering. Yes, it is silly.
Image Credit: zombieite on Flickr
READ NEXT
Good day,
I am not with Lawrence here, however he's right.
What excactly do you mean by ' mobile hotspot '.
Probably an AP (=Access Point) that serves to feed a signal into mobile devices such as smart phones.
A 'hotspot' itself is never 'mobile', unless you are using your notebook as an AP and run around the house carrying the notebook.
I stopped asking people 'why?', when they ask questions.
Sure you can turn your notebook into a (let's call it) 'sleeping' AP. 'Sleeping' means 'it exists but does not broadcast'
There are different ways to do so, most common is
- direct sharing of the signal that a device (your notebook or desktop PC) is receiving
- indirect sharing of the signal that a device (your notebook or desktop PC) is receiving by establishing a ' virtual hosted network ' serving as a so-called ' Soft AP '
I am not quite familiar with the Anniversary Upgrade yet.
However for sure the 'netsh wlan' commands still work.
If you need further assistance please follow and reply to my 'questionaire' in a similar thread here:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-hardware/hostednetwork-could-t-be-started-the-group-or/19844e99-c217-46ee-a715-a068e98a4273
After you have dropped your screnshots within THIS thread here, I shall gladly assist you further, if you wish.
Cheers!
I am attempting to start the 'Mobile Hotspot' that is inside the settings menu, without an active internet connection. Is there any way I can do this, or is there an alternative?
Buried inside most smartphones is a capability that few people take advantage of but that I have come to rely on more and more: the ability to turn the phone into a Wi-Fi hotspot.
Using my phone as a hotspot (also known as Wi-Fi tethering) means that whenever I have a couple of bars of signal strength, I can get my tablet or laptop online — and share my internet connection with work colleagues. It’s my way to stay on top of work wherever I am, allowing me to read and send emails, move data back and forth with the company’s servers and even get a taste of the latest office gossip from the comfort of a full-sized device.
A phone hotspot can be a serious collaboration tool for a group of business people attempting to work together. The potential ranges from a group on the way to the airport in a van finishing a group presentation to an accounting team working in a conference room with an internet connection independent of the company they’re auditing.
It works just like a dedicated mobile hotspot, but because it’s inside your phone, there’s nothing extra to charge, carry, and try not to lose. When the phone is connected to the mobile data network, it can convert the data stream into a Wi-Fi signal for other devices to share. Happily, the phone can still view web sites on its screen, make calls and respond to texts while it’s hosting the connection.
This technique works with most current Android and iOS phones, and using your phone as a hotspot can be more secure than using a public hotspot. The usage is generally included in your monthly plan, but only up to a specified limit for most plans. On the downside, using your phone as a hotspot can chew through your phone’s battery very quickly.
This is the place to find out!. Select the size of your shopper. D&d blacksmith shop. Select the classification of goods. Remember, most shops will carry only a couple categories of items.
After talking to representatives of phone makers and networks about their products and using my Samsung Galaxy Note 8 as a hotspot on several field trips, I’ve answered 15 key questions about Wi-Fi hotspotting to make life easier on the road.
Mobile hotspot Q&A1. What is a phone Wi-Fi hotspot?
At its essence, a hotspot is a blend of software, hardware and network data services that combine to transform a phone into the equivalent of a broadband modem and router. In other words, it can distribute a web connection to nearby systems via Wi-Fi. This not only lets me get my laptop and tablet online, but I can share it with co-workers, as long as they’re in range and they know the password.
Some phones also allow tethering via Bluetooth and USB cables, but these techniques are less popular.
2. How does it work?How To Connect Laptop To Mobile Hotspot
To use a phone as a hotspot, the device treats its online connection to the data network as if it were a broadband data source. It then transmits this data locally like a mini-Wi-Fi router using the 802.11ac protocol. The net result is that those Wi-Fi devices that are within range can tap into the data signal as if it were a regular old Wi-Fi network — because it is.
3. How secure is using a phone hotspot?
Using a phone hotspot can increase your security profile by letting you avoid the use of insecure public hotspots in coffee shops and hotels. At the phone end of the equation, it’s just as secure and private as making a phone call or web surfing with your phone, because LTE data traffic is generally encrypted using the Snow Stream cipher.
If that’s not enough for your company’s security stance, a VPN can build a stronger wall around your communications with AES 256-bit encryption. It often comes at the cost of performance, though.
Between the phone and the clients connecting through it, the phone’s hotspot uses WPA2 encryption, which requires a passcode of at least eight characters.
4. Which phones and networks support Wi-Fi tethering?
The good news is that just about every Android or iOS phone on the market can be turned into a Wi-Fi hotspot, but you’ll need to make sure your mobile plan supports it. Most of the business plans and many of the consumer plans from the Big Four national networks include hotspot use in one way or another (see the next question). The bad news is that while your talk-time and texting might be theoretically unlimited, the networks typically limit hotspot access to a maximum of 10GB to 15GB a month at full speed.
5. How much does it cost to use a phone as a Wi-Fi hotspot?
These days hotspot use is typically included in certain business and consumer plans rather than offered as an add-on service. While you can expect these plans to change as the networks jockey for position, here’s a rundown of what each of the Big Four national networks offers at the moment.
AT&T: The Business Unlimited Plus Basic and Enhanced plans both include 15GB of hotspot data at full LTE speed per month. After that, broadband speeds drop to 128Kbps. Pricing starts at $80 per line.
On the consumer side, the Unlimited Plus Enhanced plan starts at $80 per line and includes 15GB of full-speed mobile hotspot data, after which speeds drop to 128Kbps. Some of the company’s Mobile Share Flex plans and prepaid plans also include mobile hotspot capability with a range of pricing and data limits; see their web pages for details.
Sprint: The Unlimited for Business plan comes with 10GB of hotspot data at full LTE speed; pricing starts at $55 a line. Once you’ve reached the hotspot data limit, the network slows downloads to 32Kbps, which should be the bare minimum for email.
The company’s Unlimited Freedom consumer plan, which starts at $60 per line, includes 10GB of data for mobile hotspot, VPN and P2P use. When that limit is reached, customers are charged $10 for an additional 10GB. The company offers other plans that include mobile hotspot capabilities as well; see the site for details.
T-Mobile: The T-Mobile ONE plan for business is similar to Verizon’s Go Unlimited plan in that it lets you use your phone as a hotspot for as long as you like, but it’s limited to 3G speeds. The ONE Plus plan includes 10GB of hotspot data at LTE speeds, then reverts to 3G speeds. Pricing starts at $60 per line for two lines, with ONE Plus adding $10 a month per line.
Similarly, the consumer T-Mobile ONE plan includes unlimited mobile hotspotting at 3G speeds, while the ONE Plus plan allows 10GB of LTE hotspot data, then reverts to 3G speeds. Prices start at $70 per line for ONE, and ONE Plus costs an extra $10 per line. T-Mobile’s prepaid and family plans offer mobile hotspot capabilities as well; see the site for details.
Verizon: This carrier’s three commercial plans differ slightly as to their hotspot potential. While the Business Unlimited plan includes 10GB of LTE-speed hotspot data and reduces the flow to 600Kbps after that threshold has been reached, the Beyond Unlimited plan provides 15GB before it slows things down. By contrast, if 600Kbps is enough bandwidth for your work, the Go Unlimited plan is like T-Mobile’s ONE plan by including truly unlimited hotspot use at that speed. Pricing for these business plans starts at $40 per line for four lines.
Verizon’s consumer options are similar: The Beyond Unlimited plan includes 15GB of mobile hotspot use, then slows speeds down to 600Kpbs, while the Go Unlimited plan provides unlimited mobile hotspot use at 600Kbps. Pricing starts at $75 per line. The company’s $75 prepaid unlimited plan also includes unlimited hotspot use at 600Kbps.
6. What kind of devices can connect to a phone hotspot?
A phone hotspot can work with any Wi-Fi-based device, including laptops, tablets, other phones, and even game consoles. (We don’t judge what you do in your off-hours.) Think of it as just another Wi-Fi source, only it comes from your phone.
7. How many devices can connect to a phone hotspot?
Most Android phones can connect up to 10 users at a time. iPhones are a little different, with iPhone 4 models allowing three connections on the AT&T network or five on Verizon. From the 4S model to today’s iPhone X, they can accommodate up to five client connections. Some mobile plans impose their own limitations on the number of devices that can connect simultaneously.
Of course, the more users sharing the internet throughput, the lower the speed for each client.
8. Where can I use a hotspot?
Using a hotspot is not limited by where you are, as long as your phone is connected your service provider’s data network. In fact, any place where you have a signal strong enough to use the web on your phone, you can generally use it as a hotspot with favorable results. I've used phone hotspots in my home, my office, on trains, in hotel lobbies and in coffee shops throughout the U.S. as well as in Europe and Asia.
There’s a big bonus as well if your office’s data connection goes south. When my office’s internet connection went dead for five hours recently, I used my Galaxy Note 8’s hotspot abilities to keep my office up and running. It wasn’t as fast as I’m used to, but it kept the emails and data exchanges flowing. The key was configuring the hotspot with the network’s name and passcode.
9. Is the setup hard to do?
Not at all. In fact, it’s one of the easiest configuration changes you can make. It’s different for iPhones and Androids but should take no more than a minute or two. A word of advice: For security purposes, be sure to set the network name and password.
For an iPhone:
It’s a little trickier giving instructions for Android phones, because they vary by phone manufacturer and Android version. I’ve included instructions for my Galaxy Note 8 using Android 7.1.1 (Nougat), but depending on its software and network, your phone might be slightly different.
Once you’ve enabled the hotspot, it will be discoverable by devices searching for Wi-Fi networks in the vicinity, but only users you’ve shared the password with can connect. Open the Wi-Fi settings for your laptop or tablet and look for your new network. After you enter the password, the systems should link up in less than a minute.
So you’re not trailing a Wi-Fi signal wherever you go, it’s a good idea to turn the hotspot tethering off as soon as you’re done. Your battery will thank you as well.
10. How does using a hotspot affect battery life?
Speaking of battery life, turning on the hotspot abilities of your phone is like firing up a micro router, which seriously cuts back on its battery life. For example, while my Note 8 has a battery life expectancy of 10 hours, it lasted for just 7 hours, 20 minutes of continuous hotspot use with two devices connected. It’s best used for brief spells unless you can power your phone with an external battery or an AC outlet.
11. What speed and range can I expect?
All four mobile data networks in the U.S. use 4G LTE equipment with fiber-optic data backbones. The actual results depend on lots of factors, including how congested the internet is, how far you are from a closest cell tower and how many other people are using that cell site. Over the years, I’ve gotten everything from measly 20Kbps (enough for email and basic use) to 80Mbps (plenty for HD video or downloading a large presentation).
A phone hotspot can’t compare to a traditional router in terms of range. Still, you can expect to create a 25- to 50-foot zone of connectivity. This should be plenty for personal use or for a small group in a hotel room or huddling around a conference room table.
Comments are closed.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |