Tethering a laptop to a mobile phone

[nukecad]

My internet connection at home has gone down and so I am currently tethering through my mobile phone (or going to the pub to use their wi-fi).

 

I'm new to tethering like this so wonder if anyone here has more experience.

 

When tethering a laptop to a mobile phone is it better to use a USB cable, or to use the mobile as a wi-fi hotspot (or bluetooth it)?

Or does it make no real difference?

 

Both methods will obviously use the mobile contract data allowance, so no advantage there.

I realise the hotspot (or Bluetooth) method would use more of the phones battery.

I presume that using a cable would be very slightly faster, although probably not that noticable.

 

But are there any other advantages or disadvantages between the methods?

[mta]

I think you have covered all the areas nicely.

I would only extend what you have already said with the speed thing.

 

If the hotspot is using the older 2Ghz wireless technology, then Yes, USB would be slightly faster.

If the smartphone offers it, and the laptop has the capability, use the 5Ghz wifi option.

 

But as you point out, I doubt the speed difference is even observable.

And if you are part of the tinfoil hat brigade, USB tethering would have a slight advantage on the security front.

[nukecad]

Cheers for confirming my thoughts.

 

I think I will keep using the wifi then, its easier.

(and going to the pub which has other advantages)

[baloonspark]

I usually tether using my smartphone as a hotspot. I hadn't noticed any difference in speed while connecting via USB and Wi-Fi. 

[nukecad]

I thought I would update this.

 

Recently my laptop (win10 home) wifi connection keeps randomly dropping out (or won't connect at boot) and when I look at the notification pane it says for the router "No Internet, Secured".

So it's connecting to the router but not the internet. (reading round on the web this seems to be a common problem with some laptops and Win10).

 

I can usually, not always, get it back by disconnecting and reconnecting; or in bad cases by using "ipconfig /release" folllowed by "ipconfig /renew" in a command window.

 

To the point-

I noticed that even when my laptop was doing this my Android smartphone always had a good connection at the same location.

 

So the workround was to tether the phone via USB to the laptop while still using the phone to connect to the wifi.

(This is not technically tethering, it is known as a network bridge).

The main advantage of this is that you are still using your wifi rather than using up your phone contract data allowance.

 

The new connection through USB will show up on the laptop as an ethernet connection not wifi. (It shows as 'Network 3' on mine).

 

Your phone can't be both a wifi receiver and a wifi hotspot at the same time so you need to connect to the laptop by cable to do this.

(It should also be possible to connect them by bluetooth, but I haven't tried that yet).

 

Another advantage of using the usb cable is that you are not using up the phones battery, if fact it is charging it.

 

One other thing you may have a problem with if trying this is that you may need to run Windows Update to get a driver for your phone before it will connect as a network bridge instead of/as well as a storage device. (The driver is for you laptop not your phone).

As long as your phone has been connected by USB at some time then Windows Update will install the correct driver, your phone doesn't need to be connected at the time.

Once you have the driver then how it connects depends on if you have the USB tethering turned on or not on the phone.

(On it shows as a network, OFF it shows as a storage device).

 

Hope that may be of help to anyone who is having a similar problem, or who has a laptop without a working wifi card.

[hazelnut]

nukecad try turning off Fast Startup in Win 10.

 

A lot of these connection problems at boot I think are caused because the Win 10 shutdown isn't a real shutdown, it's a sort of suspended state so that you get a faster boot.

 

Trouble is then some machines don't have time to 'catch' the connection.

 

Next time after boot that you have no connection, try a 'restart' (the old cold boot) to see if you get a connection then.

[nukecad]

Cheers hazelnut,

 

Yep, I've heard that one and about a hundred other solutions, none of them seem to work for more than a day or two at most.

 

And of course it doesn't only happen on boot or restart; the internet connection just drops out randomly.

(Which would seem to rule out the problem being Fast Start / Hybrid Boot).

 

It does seem to have something to do with the IP allocation from the router, why it suddenly drops out mid session is a bit of a mystery. (but see below)

Some have tried setting up with a static IP rather than letting the router allocate one each time, but even that only works for a while.

 

It only happens with wifi.

 

It's a strange problem, from looking on google it affects various makes of laptop, with various different network adaptors/cards, different routers, and different Windows versions.

(It's mainly with Win 10, but seems to have started with Win8, and I have also seen reports of it now happening on Vista and Win7 machines).

 

With myself it also seems to happen more at certain times of the day and not happen at all at other times.

(Less power on the grid at peak times, weaker signal from the router? I'll have to try keeping a log)

 

Try googling "No Internet, Secured" to see how many are having this problem.

 

The only thing that seems to cure it permanently is to swap out the network adaptor for one with a higher spec, or maybe its just because a different card will use a different driver?

But even that is not guaranteed to work everytime.

 

Like any other intermittent problem it's proving hard to track down just what is causing it, especially as it is affecting so many different setups.

 

The best theory that I have seen is that it's something to do with Windows Firewall or Security Settings that suddenly blocks wifi access for a moment, causing the laptop to have to reconnect to the router wifi and ask for a new IP, which for some reason it doesn't get.

That would explain why disconnecting and reconnecting again, or renewing "ipconfig", sorts it out for a while.

(Until the next time the Firewall or whatever blocks the wifi connection again).

 

All strange, and I would not be at all surprised if the problem suddenly dissapears after one of the many Windows 10 updates.

[trium]

whats with 180° turn? mobil over laptop? i have try it with virtual wifi but not work

[nukecad]

Not so much a U-turn, more of an option for when your Windows 10 won't talk to the internet via the laptop's built in network adapter.

 

Using the technique above you can use your Android phone to connect to the internet via wifi, and bridge it via USB to your laptop as an external network adapter.

 

The sort of thing you may be glad to know about when crap like this happens:

Windows update knocks out internet connections - BBC News, 13 Dec 2016

more:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/12/ongoing_windows_8_10_dhcp_problems_affecting_all_isps/

 

Sounds very similar to the problem I described above that some of us have been having for a few months, but now affecting many more.

Maybe MS will get their fingers out and fix it now? (Don't hold your breath)

 

At least being able to connect via USB through an Android phone will let you get on the internet to look for any fixes and download them directly to the laptop if needed.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/10741/windows-10-fix-network-connection-issues

[nukecad]

Apparently MS have patched this problem today, and reissued the cumulative update - "it should automatically install itself through Windows Updates".

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/4004227/windows-10-update-kb3206632

 

That's going to be realy useful if your internet connection has been knocked out by the bug so you can't get the update.

 

Tip: connect by ethernet or USB instead of wifi - but of course if you are reading this you've already solved it, or weren't affected in the first place.

[hazelnut]

..and the official fix before this was to do a ''restart'' not a shutdown.

 

 

A service crash that broke DHCP. The correct mitigation was/is a restart (not shutdown/reboot, but start - power - restart). Friday's update mitigated by triggering such a restart, but today's update has the actual fix. Makes sense? Thanks! :-)

Posted by a Microsoft employee on Reddit

https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/5i57fr/december_windows_10_cumulative_updates_kb3206632/db5j928/

 

 

Fast Start up should not be the default (same as not showing file extensions shouldn't be the default)

[nukecad]

Microsoft support have gone back to the 90's -

"IT department - have you tried turning it off and then on again".

 

[hazelnut]

Funny thing is nukad, that usually works 99% of the time