How To Use A Smartphone As A Mobile Hotspot

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. 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. 1. 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, 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. A phone hotspot uses its 4G cellular network to connect to the internet, and typically shares that connection via Wi-Fi. 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.