There are situations when you need a Wi-Fi connection but your Wi-Fi device is showing some technical problem or is out of service due to essential maintenance being carried out by your service provider. Whatever the reason or situation is, nothing can stop you from performing your urgent online tasks. If you own a smartphone with 2G/3G/4G capability, you can use its available Internet facility on your laptop or tab with a few easy-to-follow steps. Almost all smartphones carry a facility that allows its owner to use and share his phone’s internet, making it a hotspot. You can turn your smartphone (Android, iOS, or Windows) into a Wi-Fi router to connect your laptop or tablet to the Internet. Once you turn your mobile’s Wi-Fi hotspot option on, you and anyone around you can use this hotspot to access online resources and web pages on their devices. This is indeed a handy option in a scenario where you are unable to use the internet over broadband or a wired network. Here are the steps you need to follow to enable and use a Wi-Fi hotspot.
Step-1
On the home screen of your smartphone click on the group of small dots at the center bottom of the screen.
Step-2
Now you will come across a number of Android applications and among them, you need to navigate to the settings icon as shown in the image below.
Step-3
This will open the settings related to various components and features. Now under Wireless & Networks, click more.
Step-4
Now you need to click on Tethering which means using the phone as a modem.
Step-5
In the following screen, you will see three types of tethering. You avail of the services of the phone as a modem by connecting your laptop or PC via USB cable, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth technology. But in this article, our focus is on Wi-Fi hotspots. So there are two options related to it. The first one is to turn on a portable Wi-Fi hotspot and below it is the option to Set up a Wi-Fi hotspot. So before enabling the hotspot, we need to set up it.
Step-6
Instructions to setup Wi-Fi hotspot
- Network Name. This is just like the SSID name of your router. You can give it any name and your system will connect to your phone using this name.
- Security. To prevent any unauthorized intrusion into your Wi-Fi network there are many security protocols available., Some of them include WEP, WPA, and WPA2. You need to pick one here. I would recommend using WPA2-PSK since it is the latest and more secure of all.
- Password. This password will be required by your device while connecting to a smartphone as a hotspot. Make sure you choose a strong password that contains alphabets, special characters, and numbers.
- Disable Wi-Fi hotspot when inactive. Here in the dropdown box, you will get different timings like 5 minutes, 10 minutes, or NEVER. I recommend you pick the least time available as this will make sure if you forget to turn off the hotspot from your phone, the phone will automatically switch it off after the time you set here.
Step-7
In the next step go back to the tethering screen and turn on the Portable Wi-Fi hotspot.
That’s it, after completing the above steps, you can click on your Wi-Fi icon on the taskbar and there you will find the name of the hotspot you have just set. Click on it and fill in the password to connect to it.
Wi-Fi hotspots can be your great companion at bad times.
As you have seen you can use your phone as a modem cum router on the go and when Wi-Fi services are disrupted due to one or another reason. You need to remember two things, one is that sharing the internet on multiple devices will consume more data and the second but important advice is to turn off the hotspot after using it since it will not only expose it to hackers but also consumes more battery power.
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