Have you ever wanted to know the answer to the question: How does portable WiFi work? Learn more about how WiFi works here.

How does Portable Wi-Fi Works

It’s time for you to go on a road trip with your family. As much as you like traveling with those you love, you have a huge project due when you get back. You would like to not have to work on it that much when you get to your destination.

What if we told you that you could work on it before? As long as you have a phone, you can set up a portable hotspot.
How does portable Wi-Fi work, and how is it different than regular Wi-Fi? We’ve got all the answers right here. Keep reading to learn more.

What Is Wi-Fi?

To learn the ins and outs of portable hotspots, it’s helpful to know the answer to the question “how does Wi-Fi work?”

The answer is pretty simple. If your home and business have a router, it will transmit and receive signals put out by your internet provider. Once you’re out of reach from your router, your signal will go out, and you’ll no longer have access to the internet.

How Does Portable Wi-fi Work?

Imagine if you could take your router on the road with you. That’s pretty much what a portable hotspot is. You can set your phone up to transmit signals.

As long as your hotspot is on and you have a mobile data plan, you’ll be able to use the internet on your laptop or tablet. It’s super convenient if you have to work while you’re on the road.

While many establishments have upgraded to include free wi-fi, you won’t have the luxury everywhere you go. It also acts as a great backup in the event your home internet goes down.

Creating a Hotspot on Your Android Phone

Setting up your hotspot works a little differently depending on what kind of phone you have. We’ll go over how to turn it on if you have an Android first.

For most Android phones, you can swipe down from your home screen and tap the hotspot symbol. Just in case, we’re going to teach you how to turn it on from your phone’s setting menu.

On your Samsung device, head over to the settings screen. From there, click on Mobile Hotspot and Tethering followed by Mobile Hotspot.

Toggle it on and tap Password if you wish to set it up, so nobody else can take advantage of your wi-fi network.

Connecting to a mobile hotspot using your Pixel device is a little different. You’ll still go to the settings menu. Once you’re there, click on Network and Internet. When you get to this menu, you can follow the same instructions that you did to turn on the Hotspot on a Samsung.

Creating a Hotspot on Your iPhone

To set up portable Wi-fi on your iPhone, head over to your settings. From there, go to the Cellular tab and turn on the portable hotspot.

There’s a slider that you can press that will allow other users to join. If you don’t want to let other people join, that’s fine too. You can always set up a password.

Connecting Your Device to the Hotspot

Now that you have your hotspot on, how do you connect your laptop or tablet to it? It’s about as simple as connecting to your home network.

Open up the list of Wi-fi networks and look for the name of your mobile hotspot. Once you click on it, you’ll be prompted to put in a password if you set one up.

Put in the password that you used and click connect. That’s all there is to it. You now have access to the internet until you use up all your cellular data or your phone dies.

Things to Keep in Mind Before Using a Hotspot
There are a few things that you need to consider before you set up your phone as a hotspot. You first need to monitor your data usage.

The reason being is that using your hotspot eats a lot of data. This is especially true if you’re using it to gain internet access on multiple devices. You don’t want to get stuck with a huge fee on your next phone bill because you went over.

Enabling a hotspot causes your phone to work a lot harder, so it stands to reason that it uses up more battery. You’ll want to invest in a USB charger if you don’t want your phone to die while you’re out.

Don’t forget to turn off your hotspot when you’re done. It will continue to use your data even if you don’t have a device connected to it.

What Do You Do if Your Hotspot Is Slow?

Is your laptop not wanting to load anything while it’s connected to the hotspot? There are a few reasons why your connection doesn’t want to work.

The first is that your cellphone is too far away from your laptop. The signal can’t reach or is running into a lot of disruptions.

If you have your phone right next to your computer, your problem might be that you have too many devices using the network. It’s bogging down the signal.

You may also have too many tabs open on your phone. Try closing them all and see if that doesn’t speed things up.
Have Access to the Internet No Matter Where You Go

Conclusion

How does portable wi-fi work? As long as you have a phone in your pocket and a data plan, you can use the internet on your laptop. It does use up a lot of cellular phone power, but it’s not a bad solution if you need to get some work done while on the go.

Are you looking for more ways to get work done and manage your startup while you’re on a trip? Check out our blog for all the latest tips and tricks.

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