Sharing Wired Internet Wirelessly
Sometimes, the wireless connection signal may be weak at work, school or hotel rooms and if you want to get your mobile device, iPhone, Android device etc connected, there is a quick fix for this problem. Most hotels are equipped with LAN ports and you could always ask the front desk for a cable.
This could be achieved across all platforms, such as OS X, Linux or Windows but we would focus on the Windows solution. The basic solution here is to use your wireless adapter on your computer to share the internet connection from the wired LAN port.
As mentioned, you would first need to make sure that you’ve got a laptop or desktop with a wireless card that isn’t currently connected — if your laptop is connected to the wired network, your wireless card should be free, and we can then use it to allow access to the internet. This could also be achieved if you have two wireless cards.
Instructions to setup AD-HOC network in Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8
- Go to the Network and Sharing Center through the Control Panel
- On the left sidebar, select the option for “Set up a new connection or network”.
- You’ll be prompted with a wizard that allows you to connect to VPNs, dial-up, or create a new adhoc wireless network
- Choose create a new adhoc wireless network
- Select a name for the network and for security, choose WPA2 for a more secure network
- You’ll need to give your network a name and choose some security options—remember that WEP is extremely easy to
- Return to the Network and Sharing Center
- On the left sidebar once again, select the “Change adapter settings”
- Identify the wired LAN connection that has currently internet enabled. Normally it would be the Local Area Connection.
- Right click on the selected icon and choose properties. Go to the sharing tab and enable “Allow other users to connect through this Internet’s network connection”.
Instructions to setup AD-HOC network for Windows XP
For Windows XP users, from the control panel, identify the wireless network connection adapter and right click on the icon -> properties. In the Wireless Network Connections Properties dialog, click the box that says, “Use Windows to configure my wireless network settings.”
At the bottom of the dialog window, click the “Add” button to start creating your mobile hotspot.
- Enter a name for your network, select “Open” under Network Authentication. Then, under Data Encryption, select “WEP.”
- Enter desired password under “Network key” and confirm it in the next field.
- If you are unable to enter a password, un-check “The key is provided for me automatically” and the password key fields should open.
- Check “This is a computer-to-computer (ad-hoc) network; wireless access points are not used.” Then click OK to create your hotspot.
- Your new network will now appear under “Preferred Networks.”
- Click the “Advanced” button to bring up the Advanced properties dialog. Then click “Computer-to-computer (ad-hoc) networks only.”
- Click “Close” to close the Advanced properties dialog, and then OK to close the Network Connections Property Dialog.
- At this point, Windows XP is ready to start the network and make connections available to other devices. However, since we want to share the Internet connection from our wireless modem or our Ethernet connection, we need to now tell Windows which connection to share.
- Click the “Advanced” tab and check “Allow other network users to connect through the computer’s Internet connection.“
- Setting up your mobile hotspot is now complete.