Tethering is a very useful but little-known method of sharing your Internet connection. It can save us on more than one occasion, both at home or in the office and when we are out and about and need to connect. The term literally means "chaining", and the name is not accidental: with tethering we do nothing but hook a mobile device to another, so that the first can share its Internet connection with the second.
This allows us to transform our smartphone or tablet into a real Wi-Fi router to which other mobile devices, or even a desktop or laptop computer, can connect and use it as a bridge to the Web. Connection sharing between smartphones and other devices can take place both via Wi-Fi and via Bluetooth or USB.
Tethering: when it's useful
There are two typical usage scenarios for tethering. The first is when we are at home (or in the office) with our smartphone and our computer, both connected to the Internet via our Internet Service Provider's modem router. As long as the fixed connection works there is no reason to activate tethering, but if the fixed connection "drops" for any reason then the whole house (or the whole office) is left without Internet. If we can't wait for the problem to be resolved, but we need the Internet connection right away, then we can activate tethering on the smartphone and share its mobile data connection with other devices.
The second scenario in which it is useful to activate tethering is when we are far from a fixed connection, in the company of someone who needs to connect to the Internet but has finished the gigabytes of his tariff plan (or has no network coverage of the its operator). In this case we activate tethering on our device and "give" connection to yours. In both cases, the procedure for activating tethering is the same.
How to activate tethering on Android
To activate thetering on an Android device, simply go to Settings > Network and Internet > Hotspots and Tethering. As always, the various manufacturers of Android smartphones change the names of the settings sections and it could therefore happen that you do not find these names in the menu of your device. However, you don't have to "despair": the names are similar and you won't have any difficulty finding them again.
Returning to the "Hotspot and Tethering" section, here we will have to touch "Wi-Fi Hotspot", "USB Tethering" or "Bluetooth Tethering" depending on the type of connection we want to use to share Internet access with the other device. The typical case is that of the Wi-Fi connection, so we tap on "Wi-Fi hotspot" and we will find the toggle to activate tethering. Then we will be able to change the name of the hotspot (usually it is the model of our smartphone, but we can change it), the type of encryption to apply to the connection and the password that the other device will have to use to connect.
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How to activate tethering on iOS
To activate tethering on iOS, follow a similar procedure: go to Settings > Mobile or Settings > Personal Hotspot and tap the switch next to "Allow others to sign in". Also in this case we will have to set a password, to prevent anyone from using our iPhone or iPad as a router, and we will be able to choose whether to share the Internet connection via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or USB cable.
You can also allow devices in our Family Sharing group to use the hotspot without entering any password. Just go to Settings > Personal Hotspot > Family Sharing, turn on and set up Family Sharing by tapping on each group member's name and selecting the option so they don't have to ask for approval to automatically connect to our personal hotspot.
Tethering from a smartphone: what to watch out for
Tethering, as mentioned, consists of sharing our data connection with other people. Generally speaking, telephone operators in Italy now tend not to charge for data exchanged in this way with different billing, nor to limit the amount of data exchanged. The limit of our data offer remains: if we have a 10 GB subscription, and we use them simultaneously from two smartphones thanks to tethering, they don't become 20 GB, they are consumed in half the time.
However, if we still have an old offer there may be additional costs, so it is better to check this before activating tethering, or we may have nasty surprises. A small problem to take into account when we activate tethering on our mobile device is that this feature consumes enough battery, so if we have to use it for a long time it would be better to connect the device to the charger.
Finally, the most important recommendation of all: both by activating Wi-Fi tethering and activating Bluetooth (but not when we activate tethering via USB) we are at hacker risk. Our smartphone becomes a router, to which others can connect and, if we don't set a strong enough password, the risk is that some passing thief detects our hotspot and "holes" our smartphone. For this too, it is a good rule to deactivate tethering immediately as soon as the second device no longer needs a connection.