In a nutshell, using a hotspot can make life easier on the road, and occasionally even at home. On the downside, using your phone as a hotspot can chew through your phone’s battery very quickly.Īfter talking to representatives of phone makers and networks about their products and using my Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G as a hotspot on several field trips, I’ve updated the answers to the following 15 key questions about phone hotspotting. The usage is generally included in your monthly plan, but after you reach a specified data limit for most plans, the speed drops. This technique works with just about every current Android and iOS phone, and using your phone as a hotspot can be more secure than using a public hotspot.

Happily, the phone can still view web sites on its screen, make calls and respond to texts while it’s hosting the hotspot connection. 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.

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. It can also provide a connectivity lifeline for a home office when the Wi-Fi goes down. 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’s my way to stay on top of work wherever I am, allowing me to read and send emails, move data back and forth with the company’s servers and even get a taste of the latest office gossip from the comfort of a full-sized device.Ī phone hotspot can be a serious collaboration tool for a group of businesspeople attempting to work together. 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. Buried inside just about every smartphone 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.

-baidu wifi hotspot