I'm thinking of buying a pc (not a laptop as I hate them) to be used in a place with no landline/internet so wonder if I can used my mobile phone (unlimited data plan) for surfing etc - do I need a pc with bluetooth or cable or ....

Help please as fairly clueless in such matters

Cheers

yes you can do it. & many phones will share as a local wifi 'hotspot'

or you can get 'dedicated' routers that share from 3g / 4g etc

You can use Bluetooth (either built-in or a USB dongle).

You can also use wi-fi. If the PC doesn't have it, then again a USB dongle is the solution. It can then connect to your phone's wifi hotspot.

You can even plug the PC and phone together with a USB lead and do it that way, but it can be harder to set up, causes wear and tear keep plugging in and out and is obviously not so convenient.

Worth checking with your mobile provider, many ban tethering.

How would they know? Surely you're just consuming data? Perhaps they inspect the packets of data- bit intrusive if so!!! I've done it and it works well. Presumably a VPN would get round that anway.

I even once took things once step further- I was staying at a hotel were my android tablets could access wifi but my laptop (which only had wifi and no bluetooth) couldn't. In the end I think I tethered two android devices via bluetooth then used the 2nd one as an access point. Very silly but hey. Worked well albeit it with some significant ping lag!

okay- should have done the google search first. Wow, quite a few ways they can do it, it appears!!! Looks like there is a nice game of cat + mouse going on.... Sounds like a job for a raspberry pi sat at home running OpenVPN and just tunnel everything through that....

[Edited on 27/2/21 by BenB]

quote:

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Originally posted by coyoteboy
Worth checking with your mobile provider, many ban tethering.

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You can get 4G routers as well, use a sim with a good data deal.

Cheers everyone - it's fine on EE (they couldn't say no on an unlimited data plan really)

I'll look for a PC now

Work laptop and mobile, but I've used mine in the way you describe (mobile as a WiFi hotspot) many times. It's always worked flawlessly and O2 (mobile contract) have never charged more or got their knickers in a twist.

With a PC I guess you'd need a WiFi dongle (£20 tops).

As you say if you've got an unlimited data contract then your not using more than you should or are paying for.

If it helps on the PC front, I was quite impressed with the ADMI one I bought via Amazon for my son.

They basically built from components and included all the manuals and discs provided with those components in the box with the PC.

EE:
Yes, you can hotspot off your phone on an unlimited plan as long as it's for personal use only. If you regularly tether 12 or more devices, we will consider this non-personal use and have the right to move you to a more suitable plan.

We will consider usage above 1000GB/month to be commercial use and have the right to move you to a business plan.

Don't know about using the phone but we have just moved out to the sticks and use a 4g sim card router and an unlimited data sim. Works pretty well. We have an external antenna as well which boosts our 4g signal.

I think the router was about £90
The external antenna about £110
and the Sim card is £18/month - cheaper than the line rental alone for a wired connection...

Glad we had it the other day as a tree came down and brought down the local phone lines.

Cheers.