On mobile phones becoming wifi access points

[Alferd Packer]

I've decided that the next phone I get needs to have the capability of becoming a mobile access point. It can do this via official avenues or through some homebrew haxing. Either is fine with me. Since I'm not really a phone guy (I just buy a reasonable one every two years), I'm kind of out of the loop as to what to even look for. Do all major US providers offer this kind of functionality? Is it limited to ultra high-end phones? If anyone has any experience with this sort of thing, I'd be much obliged.

[phongn]

T-Mobile tends to look the other way for tethering and using a phone as a wifi hotspot so long as you have a data plan; jailbroken Android phones can do so.

Other providers generally charge money or prohibit the practice.

[Lord Pounder]

I can't speak for America, but O2 in the UK do offer tethering service for an additional £10 to your bill with it's iPhone contracts, works well on my second generation iPhone. I'm sure there are ways to do this also if you jail break the phone too, but I'm not actually sure of the legality of doing that.

[White Haven]

Sprint's been pushing a five-system Wifi access point function in their 4G phones lately. No personal experience with how well it works or doesn't work.

[muse]

I have an HTC HD2 from my work since they were handing out free cellphones & subsidized plans to people in my department and it was the most expensive of the choices they had. I haven't tried the tethering function or even any mobile browsing yet, so far it's a glorified phone & music player, albeit a really nice one. I'm told my company's giving us a voice & data plan for the cost of the voice plan alone, I'll try & test it out soon as soon as I finish reading the manual and figure out how it's done.

[Stark]

Using a phone tethered as a modem is different to being a wireless access point. There are a few products that are actually APs that you stick your SIM in so you can share your 3G/etc data access. They probably need power, though, since wifi is pretty juice heavy.

[JointStrikeFighter]

A few phones (nokia n95) can 3g connect and then stream that locally over wifi.

[Sarevok]

There is a software called Joikuspot available for symbian and windows mobile phones. It turns the phone into an access point like a normal router. It is extremely bloody useful ! I can creare an adhoc network anywhere anytime with any devices (upto 8 supported in my phones wifi). The demo program is fully functional excepted it dont let you make WEP or WPA encrypted networkks so other people can still your internets. Other than that it is fantastic and I have stopped using bluetooth. Whenever I or a friend needs net on the god I turn on joikuspot and everyone in 100 feet has a wifi network they can connect to.

Joikuspot demo is bfree btw. If you have Nokia N97 or similar newer phones it may come preinstalled already. If not give it a try and buy the full version if you like to make secure wifi networks.

[Sarevok]

Using a phone tethered as a modem is different to being a wireless access point. There are a few products that are actually APs that you stick your SIM in so you can share your 3G/etc data access. They probably need power, though, since wifi is pretty juice heavy.

It will outlast any laptop battery though. If you turn your phone into wifi access point your laptop will shutdown long before phone itself loses power. And if you have power for laptop you also have power for the phone - just stick in a USB cable. So power is a moot point.

[Sarevok]

I have an HTC HD2 from my work since they were handing out free cellphones & subsidized plans to people in my department and it was the most expensive of the choices they had. I haven't tried the tethering function or even any mobile browsing yet, so far it's a glorified phone & music player, albeit a really nice one. I'm told my company's giving us a voice & data plan for the cost of the voice plan alone, I'll try & test it out soon as soon as I finish reading the manual and figure out how it's done.

Its a windows mobile phone. So just plug it in with a usb cable and it should immedietly start working as a modem. Windows vista and later has excellent out of the box support for windows mobile devices.

[Resinence]

Used to do this with my N95 before I changed phones, just a note, I'd recommend not putting the phone doing this in your pocket. Mine used to get pretty damn hot for a mobile if I had the access point running for more than an hour or so. Since wifi uses a bit of power I find that plugging your phone into your laptop and turning the laptop into the access point works better, and you get better range and encryption.

[Pu-239]

Using a G1 on T-Mobile w/ CyanogenMod- USB tethering is a checkbox under the settings, works automagically w/ Fedora. Don't really see the point of wifi access mode, since it drains battery and the phone needs to actually be usable for at least a day as a phone w/o charging, and the battery life on most smartphones is already horrific there's no need to make it shorter.

Only reason I can see is sharing it between multiple laptops, and There's an App for That (for rooted Android phones).

[Sarevok]

Using a G1 on T-Mobile w/ CyanogenMod- USB tethering is a checkbox under the settings, works automagically w/ Fedora. Don't really see the point of wifi access mode, since it drains battery and the phone needs to actually be usable for at least a day as a phone w/o charging, and the battery life on most smartphones is already horrific there's no need to make it shorter.

Only reason I can see is sharing it between multiple laptops, and There's an App for That (for rooted Android phones).

The main advantage of wifi is the convenience. Bluetooth is unreliable and unpredictable for connecting a new phone with a pc for use a modem. It works fine for transferring file and photos but for some reason using a phone as modem seem to depend exclusively on luck.

Of course USB cables are the best. You get reliable and connection and the phone charging at the same time.

[Phantasee]

Is there a way to use the iPhone as a tether? I think it's a feature on my plan, but I don't see how to do that, exactly.

[Sarevok]

Is there a way to use the iPhone as a tether? I think it's a feature on my plan, but I don't see how to do that, exactly.

Tether like most people do or use the rather uncommon method of turning the phone into a wifi hotspot ?

[Praxis]

Jailbroken iPhones can do this.

I'm on T-Mobile, and they've never given me an issue. The downside to T-Mobile iPhones, however, is that you only get 2G speeds, due to their 3G band being different from AT&T's.

[Phantasee]

Is there a way to use the iPhone as a tether? I think it's a feature on my plan, but I don't see how to do that, exactly.

Tether like most people do or use the rather uncommon method of turning the phone into a wifi hotspot ?

Tether like most people do. I understand it's a feature available to all Canadian cellphone carriers, and they don't fuck around like AT&T apparently do.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Is there a way to use the iPhone as a tether? I think it's a feature on my plan, but I don't see how to do that, exactly.

Go to Settings->General->Network->Internet tether.

I use it for Internet Tethering as well, and it helps that I have a netbook with plenty of battery.

[Phantasee]

Would this work if I'm using a wifi connection? For some reason I can't get a consistent and stable connection with my laptop at home, but my iPhone only drops it when I've walked off the property. It would be interesting to try, at least.

[Stark]

If your iPhone plan supports tethering, it should show up as a modem as soon as you plug it in to sync. It does this on my Win7 and OSX.

[andrewgpaul]

Would this work if I'm using a wifi connection? For some reason I can't get a consistent and stable connection with my laptop at home, but my iPhone only drops it when I've walked off the property. It would be interesting to try, at least.

This page on O2's website would imply that it would; "To use Wi-Fi on your laptop, you should make sure you switch off Internet Tethering on your iPhone and connect your laptop directly to the Wi-Fi hotspot."

[Praxis]

And if tethering isn't part of your plan, jailbreak and purchase MyFi ($10), which turns your iPhone into a portable hotspot, or some of the freeware tethering apps (which require that you turn your laptop into a hotspot, and then have your iPhone join it).

[Dargos]

My palm pre has an application that turns it into a mobile hotspot. App was issued by Palm and supports up to 4 users on my phone.