Mar 13 2011

Creating a Wifi Hot Spot with your iPhone

Internet access on the go using your iPhone as a modem.

Apple released an upgrade to the iPhone operating system this week (iOS 4.3), which makes it easy to create a ‘Personal Hotspot’ using your iPhone.

This means that you can use your iPhone to give your laptop or iPad access to the internet. This is of particular advantage if you are using the non-3G enabled iPad (Robyn take note).

It is easy to activate  ‘Personal Hotspot’.

Open ‘Settings’ on your iPhone

Select ‘Personal Hot Spot’

You will see that a random password has been supplied. Change it if you like.

Slide the switch to turn Personal Hot Spot On.

That’s it.

If you have an iPhone 4, your phone will be discoverable as one of the WiFi networks available to your laptop or iPad(on the Mac, this is from the Airport menu). Up to 3 devices can network via WiFi.

You will also be able to use the HotSpot via a USB connection or Bluetooth – so you could provide internet access to 5 devices altogether.

(If you have an iPhone 3 or 3GS, only the HotSpot or Bluetooth options are available – the WiFi option does not work on these older models)

Make sure that you have a good data plan before using your iPhone as a hot spot. Excess data charges can be vey high – especially overseas!