Your SIM card’s data connection can be used to connect your computer to the Internet. Here’s how hotspot and tethering works
What if the Internet connection at home or in the office isn’t working as it should, but we urgently need to connect to the Web? What to do if we need to connect with our laptop when we are far from a Wi-Fi network? Simple: in both cases we can use the mobile data connection to surf the web from the PC.
Most Android smartphones and all iPhones can share the cellular connection with another device, via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or USB. Basically if your smartphone has Android 9 or later and iOS 12 or later we should have no problem sharing our data connection. The only thing to really pay attention to, however, is our phone plan: some operators do not allow you to use data on other devices and charge a high price for the connection used via PC. So let’s ask the operator, or we’ll risk finding bad surprises on our phone bill.
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Hotspot or thethering?
To connect a PC to the Internet via the smartphone’s cellular network, we can use two similar but different solutions: the mobile hotspot and thethering.
A mobile hotspot is a device that, via the Wi-Fi network, “distributes” the connection to which it is connected to other devices. It is the same principle of the public Wi-Fi hotspots, the ones located in squares, clubs or parks: we connect via Wi-Fi the PC laptop to the hotspot and we receive the connection from it.
Thethering, instead, is a direct connection between the laptop (or even the desktop) and the cell phone. In this case, it is as if the smartphone becomes the external modem of the PC. The result, however, is the same: we can surf from the PC using the cellular data connection.
How to activate the hotspot on Android smartphones
To activate the hotspot on an Android smartphone just go to Settings > Network and Internet > Hotspot and tethering > Wi-Fi Hotspot. Here we’ll also find a field “Hotspot password”: it’s the security code that we’ll have to type in the second device so that it connects with the phone. After activating the hotspot on the mobile we have to go to the laptop to connect and open the Wi-Fi connections. Here we’ll find the Wi-Fi network created by the hotspot (usually the name of the smartphone model) to which we’ll have to connect by entering the password.
The names of the various sections can change depending on the model of Android smartphone.
How to activate thethering on Android smartphones
We can activate thethering between smartphone and PC by connecting them either via Bluetooth or USB. In the first case we’ll have to pair the devices, then on the smartphone we’ll have to go to Settings > Network and Internet > Hotspot and tethering > Bluetooth thethering. If, on the other hand, we have connected the smartphone to the PC via USB, in the same settings screen we won’t find Thethering Bluetooth but Thethering USB. In both cases we will have to activate thethering to be able to surf from the PC with the connection of the Android smartphone.
Also in this case the names of the various sections can change depending on the model of Android smartphone.
How to activate the hotspot on iOS
As it happens on Android smartphones, even on iOS you can share the connection of the iPhone or iPad with the computer. First you have to go to Settings > Mobile or Settings > Personal Hotspot. Then you just have to activate the toggle next to the entry and allow other devices to access. If the feature is not available, you have to contact your phone operator.
The connection to the smartphone hotspot can be made via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or USB. With iOS 13, the connection remains active even if the screen is locked. To share the smartphone connection with your PC via Bluetooth, you need to go into Settings > Bluetooth and follow the directions on your computer to set up the connection.