Sharing your phone’s internet connection with a PC is a great way to work remotely, here’s how to do it with Android or Apple smartphones.

It is difficult to imagine working in a modern office without an internet connection, as ensuring access to the net is the keystone of any remote working solution. Wi-Fi broadband is going to be your uplink of choice, but if you have an Android smartphone or an iPhone, you can probably share its 3G or HSDPA connection with your laptop or tablet. Given the right software, your phone can create its own wireless network and allow other devices to connect to it and share its mobile data link – this is known as tethering.
Tethering has something of a chequered history and although several apps have offered the feature, it has not always been encouraged by mobile networks and some even considered it a breach of their fair use policies. With the advent of Android 2.2 and iOS 3.0, which baked tethering into the operating systems, tethering has gone mainstream and many mobile networks have begun offering tethering packages, encouraging users to tether legitimately for a small additional fee. Others have simply become more relaxed about the practice and are happy to allow fair use of a smartphone’s 3G link even while tethered.

What do you need to tether?

You need to be running Android 2.2 or higher or iOS 3.0 or higher. You almost certainly already are, if not you can manually check for an update on Android here or let iTunes upgrade you automatically on iOS.
You also need a compatible mobile contract. Your network may charge you an additional fee for tethering (they do check), but if they don’t mention it then you should be fine as long as you have some data usage remaining.
Some networks may restrict the ability to turn on tethering and you may need to get them to unlock the feature before you can use it. If you don’t, see the settings mentioned below, contact your network and ask if tethering can be activated.

Tethering for Android

Here’s what you need to do:
- Open Settings> Wireless & Network Settings> Tethering & Portable Hotspot.
- Tap Portable Wi-Fi hotspot > Configure Wi-Fi Hotspot.
- Give your hotspot a name or SSID – Call it anything you like.
- Pick a security level, either Open or WPA2 PSK (password encryption), in which case you need to set a password.
- Save the settings and tick the Portable Wi-Fi hotspot box.
Your laptop or tablet should now see a new wireless network with whatever SSID you set. Connect to it and start browsing the web!

Tethering for iPhone

The process is even easier on iOS, here’s how you do it:
- Open Settings > General > Network.
- Tap Personal Hotspot.
- Switch Personal Hotspot to ON and set a password.
The hotspot will be visible as a Wi-Fi network called something like iPhone 4. Connect your laptop/tablet and away you go.
Without a password your network will be open for anyone to connect to it, so we would advise setting one unless you are certain that nobody is going to try and hijack your 3G. You will be liable for any charges should someone start using your phone to watch YouTube clips, so consider it carefully.

Stu Houghton

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