Phone tethering basics
Small business owners are often on the go. And they need connectivity pretty much all the time. In cases where you can’t get a wifi connection, you might be able to use your smartphone to provide the connectivity to your laptop.
Here’s how it works in a nutshell:
- Tethering is the ability to use your mobile device to connect a computer (usually a laptop) to the Internet. It uses the device’s own cell capabilities to do that, so it will be as fast (or as slow) as your device.
- You can connect the device using a USB cable, bluetooth or wi-fi connection, depending on the carrier and device
- Set-up is done on the phone itself, and you may have to sign up for the service through your carrier
- You connect your laptop similarly as you would otherwise connect to a wi-fi network, bluetooth device or ethernet connection
- Just watch your usage because this could use up your data plan really fast.
An alternative is to use a mobile hotspot device. ComputerWorld has a great article on that subject