Turning Your Laptop Into A Wifi Basestation.

[necronx99]

I recently have gone from having ADSL WiFi with a proper WiFi modem router which was great for providing wifi to my phone and ipad to using a 4g dongle plugged into my laptop directly.

Great for the laptop but this left me using the 3g connection on the phone for providing access for botht he phone and the ipad. Not the best arrangement.

I tried a few options via command line and programs to enable WifI broadcast from my laptop but had no success, most likely due to the age of the laptop and its drivers not supporting the operation.

Then I tried a program called conectifyme. With a few minutes of mucking about I had a broadcasting wifi signal with wep security up and runnning and both my phone and ipad could connect with no trouble.

I have no connection to this company and am only using the free version which is all i need to set up the WiFi. Bells and whistles on the paid version, but if all you want is to set up local wifi the free does it. If you are looking for a solution like this I recommend it.

[CharlieH]

Agree, been using the same thing for several months with 4 devices connected through no problem.

[trd]

Unfortunately on the website it says that for Windows XP it supports a WiFi connection in ad hoc mode only. The iPad won't connect in ad hoc mode unless it's jailbroken.

I was thinking of buying one of those mifi boxes which you can plug a 3G dongle into to create a hotspot.

Edited May 21, 2012 by trd

[Darrel]

WinXP and up has everything you need for this built-in. No drivers or extra programmes required.

[trd]

WinXP and up has everything you need for this built-in. No drivers or extra programmes required.

Darrel, I've tried it and couldn't make it work.

[necronx99]

WinXP and up has everything you need for this built-in. No drivers or extra programmes required.

Im on win 7 which does have the native ability but requires a compatable wifi adapter.

The command line approach tells me the device is not in a state to complete the operation.

Connectify also tells me the AP is not supported but generates the connection anyways..

[Darrel]

Cases of YMMV, I suppose.

I've only ever had cause to set it up about 6 or 8 times, and only once on my own equipment, but it has always worked without any trouble for me.