Cant seem to set S2 as WiFi hotspot - what am I doing wrong??

[stevep94]

I was out of the house with my laptop the other day and thought I'd see if I could set up wireless access to the net through my Galaxy S2.

I think I turned it on through the "Portable Wi-Fi hotspot settings" option and the laptop found the signal but wouldn't connect for some reason!?!?!

Is it a setting I have missed or is it something to do with the carrier - I'm on Three but not the "all you can eat data" tariff!!

Can you only do this with certain carriers or should it work on any??

Thanks guys.......

 

[Russell Ng]

I never used the portable wifi hotspot, but have used the USB tethering. That works for me.

 

[Shotgun84]

Yeah you need to have a specific plan to be able to tether on 3.
You can find their tethering policy here
http://androidforums.com/3/455912-3s-official-tethering-policy.html

 

[stevep94]

Yeah you need to have a specific plan to be able to tether on 3.
You can find their tethering policy here
http://androidforums.com/3/455912-3s-official-tethering-policy.html

I'd read somewhere that I wasn't supposed to use it as a Wi-Fi hotspot/tether but is that why its not working? I find it surprising that it is smart enough to know my plan doesn't allow it - I'd have thought it would just work still within my limits???

 

[Shotgun84]

If your contract with 3 doesn't allow it that will be why it doesn't work. To be honest I don't know the technical details of how they know but if they didn't they wouldn't bother selling the tethering plans as everyone would be able to get it for free.

 

[linuxrich]

Going back to basics, you did go in and set up security passphrase etc. rather than just turning hotspot on and hoping for the best didn't you? Apologies in advance if that's a teaching granny to suck eggs kind of obvious observation...

 

[lunatic59]

I've check into Three's policy for you and found the following which will clear things up for you.

So The One Plan has been our priority in the first half of this year. It’s where we’ve focussed our attention, but it’s now time for us to be looking at data and tethering across the rest of our plans.

We know you have questions about the future of tethering and data on Pay As You Go and our other contract plans as tethering isn’t allowed on these at the moment, but there’s a lot of work and number-crunching for us to do behind the scenes - we’re looking at what’s possible, but we’re not there yet.

You can read the rest here. Hope that's the information you were looking for. Be advised that current forum policy is to not assist other members in bypassing carrier restrictions, specifically to tether without a required plan.

 

[lunatic59]

Please review http://androidforums.com/site-updates-announcements/490815-change-our-tethering-policy-our-approach-some-other-content.html