Say you’re travelling and you have your laptop with you. But, alas, there’s no WiFi, or you don’t trust the public WiFi at the hotel or eating place you’re at, or you’re just not in an area where a WiFi connection you trust is available. An article such as this one on cellphonedeal.com can tell you about the risks to your data when you travel.

Well, if you have a smartphone, you probably have a solution!

Your laptop can use your phone’s  cellular signal to access the internet. This is what is called, “tethering“. To use it, you would need to turn on your WiFi on your laptop if it isn’t already on.

Phone on with home screen visible. 6/26/2018

Next, you would most likely go to your phone’s settings. The tethering option may be located under WiFi or connection settings or under advanced settings. Each phone is different. And, your phone may offer different methods of making the connection, either via USB cable or other means, so it’s a good idea to have a cable with you that can physically connect your phone and computer.

Once you have a connection, you’re ready to go! Now, there are some things to note.

First, please don’t think that you can now ditch your internet service at home and use your phone for free internet service!

You see, with tethering, your internet won’t be nearly as fast in many cases, because you’re using your phone’s processor. So, if you have something like a major download you want to do or something that requires a large number of open pages, you may want to skip these until you get to where you can have a safe direct WiFi or cable connection that you trust, like the one you do have at home.

And, it can also count against your phone plan’s data limit as well.

But, if you need WiFi on the fly for simpler web-based tasks, this can really help!

Happy Computing!

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