Connect your smartphone to the internet via PC

We need to connect to the Internet on our smartphone or tablet but don’t have a router available? In this case, we can rely on our trusted PC, which can if necessary, provide us with an Internet connection by sharing the Wi-Fi connection or the Ethernet cable connection and creating a dedicated wireless network to connect any smartphone or tablet in our possession.
In this guide we will show you how to add Wi-Fi to your PC (if this type of connection is not present), how to create the hotspot network from Windows and Mac and finally how connect an Android smartphone or an iPhone to the PC hotspot on the Internet just created, so you can immediately browse the Internet without limits. This type of connection is also useful when we have little data traffic in our offer, so we can continue to use our favorite apps without consuming data.

READ ALSO: Use the internet key to connect from tablets and mobile phones

Connect the smartphone (Android and iPhone) to the internet via PC

The most effective way to connect an Android or iPhone smartphone to the Internet is to create a wireless hotspot directly on the computer, be it Windows or Mac. Practically it is the same hotspot function present on both Android and iPhone devices, with the only difference being that the PC connection is shared.

How to add Wi-Fi to the PC

In order to create a hotspot network from our computer, we will need to have this one with a Wi-Fi network card. If we use a notebook or MacBook, we won’t have this kind of problem since the wireless card is already included; if instead, we use a desktop PC we can add the Wi-Fi connection by buying a USB type Wi-Fi adapter such as the TP-Link Archer T2U (€ 18).

If we prefer an internal network card, to be connected to the PCI-Express X1 slot, we recommend the Hommie 1200M Wireless Express Dual Band 802.11ac (€ 28).

If we want to choose other devices to add the wireless connection to our fixed PC, we can read the guide on Best 5GHz WiFi adapters for PC, for faster connections.

Are Wi-Fi cards or adapters not working properly? We can try to update the drivers by reading our guide on how to Update the drivers of a Windows PC automatically.

How to create the hotspot network from Windows

Once the adapter or network card is added to our Windows PC, we can quickly create the hotspot network using a free program like Free WiFi Hotspot.

Once started, we will only have to enter a name for the hotspot network to be created, choose a strong password, indicate the connection with which we connect the PC to the Internet in the field Share from (indicating cable connection or Wi-Fi connection) then click Start. Our computer will immediately create the new network, which we can use to connect all our devices (as we will see in the following chapters). To stop the hotspot just re-open the app and use the button Stop.

To use other similar programs, we invite you to read our guide on how to Create a WiFi hotspot on a Windows PC.
In Windows 10, instead, it is possible to create the hotspot network without using external programs as explained in our article on how to use the Windows 10 PC as a wifi router activating the Hotspot option in Settings> Network and Internet> Mobile Hotspot.

How to create the hotspot network from Mac

If we use an iMac or a MacBook, we will not be able to share the same Wi-Fi network to which we are already connected: we will then be able to share only the Ethernet connection or an LTE connection via special USB key. Once you have made one of these links, we click on the Apple symbol at the top left, select System Preferences and open the menu Sharing.

From the window that appears, select the item from the left side Internet sharing, let’s make sure that in the field Share your connection from is selected Ethernet or the data key, then we put the checkmark on the item Wifi in the field To the computers they use. Now we can take advantage of the Mac hotspot to connect an iPhone, an Android smartphone or another PC; to change the password and the name of the hotspot network created on the Mac, we click on the button Wi-Fi options present in the same window in which we activated sharing.

How to connect to the hotspot network from Android and iPhone

Now that the hotspot network is ready, we can connect our smartphones to it as if it were any Wi-Fi network.
On Android, just go to the menu Settings -> Wi-Fi, make sure the wireless connection is active, tap on the name of the hotspot created and then enter the password chosen for the occasion.

On the iPhone the procedure is practically similar: we open the app Settings, let’s get to the menu Wifi, let’s make sure the checkmark on the button is active Wifi then we press on the name of the hotspot to which we want to connect, so that we can enter the password and start browsing.

Conclusions

If we have a few GB of data on our phone and we want to surf without limits using the Internet connection of our PC (even in Wi-Fi if the computer better covers the signal coming from the modem), it will be enough to equip ourselves with the appropriate devices and use one of the programs or the procedures described in this guide to connect each smartphone to the internet via PC.

If instead, we need to create a hotspot from our smartphone to connect the PC or any other wireless device, just read one of the two guides on How to activate the Hotspot on Android to share Internet in Wifi, Bluetooth or USB come on How to Activate the Hotspot on iPhone (Wi-Fi or Bluetooth).
Are our room too far away from the home modem and the Wi-Fi signal is poor or null? In this scenario, we can use the Powerline connection to connect the PC and from it create a hotspot, so as to have a wireless connection in the room.