Connect LAN to Internet via cell phone?

RWIndiana

Learning Storage Performance
Joined
Oct 19, 2004
Messages
335
Location
Nirvana
I'm sure someone has probably done this before. I have wireless hotspot on my Verizon phone. Is there a way to allow all the computers on my home network (wired and wireless) to use the phone's Internet connection? The router is a Linksys WRT54G.
 

ddrueding

Fixture
Joined
Feb 4, 2002
Messages
19,525
Location
Horsens, Denmark
I've done it, but it was years ago and my memory is poor.

IIRC, I didn't use a router at all, just a laptop joined to the hotspot and wired to the network with both NICs bridged. Let the hotspot handle DNS and DHCP.
 

time

Storage? I am Storage!
Joined
Jan 18, 2002
Messages
4,932
Location
Brisbane, Oz
Howell, so does that mean just set each client's Default Gateway to the PC that's hosting the phone?
 

time

Storage? I am Storage!
Joined
Jan 18, 2002
Messages
4,932
Location
Brisbane, Oz
Cheers Howell. ;)

To answer my own question, yes, you need to set Default Gateway on each PC to point to the PC that the phone is connected to. Because DHCP has probably assigned the router as DNS server, you also need to enter a suitable DNS server address.

On my router, you can just enter this info in the DHCP section and it should automatically propagate to the PCs, although you may have to override this for the host PC (I didn't test this).

But before all that, you need to enable Windows Internet Sharing on the new network connection between the host PC and phone.

It would be really interesting to see how you could set this up to minimize reconfiguration in a failover situation. For the record, I used an Android 2.1 phone with "Internet Sharing" enabled and selected that option when the USB cable was plugged in.
 

Howell

Storage? I am Storage!
Joined
Feb 24, 2003
Messages
4,740
Location
Chattanooga, TN
Oh... You were serious. :)

On the one device I looked at it literally acts as a WAP/Internet gateway. So you just choose the correct ssid and bam! The tricky part being that if you connect it to a computer the device turns into a dedicated connection and turns off the WAP.
 

RWIndiana

Learning Storage Performance
Joined
Oct 19, 2004
Messages
335
Location
Nirvana
Thanks for the input, fellas, I'm gonna have to give this a try (if I ever get the time). It would sure be nice to have a failover when the satellite goes out.
 

Pradeep

Storage? I am Storage!
Joined
Jan 21, 2002
Messages
3,845
Location
Runny glass
I'm sure someone has probably done this before. I have wireless hotspot on my Verizon phone. Is there a way to allow all the computers on my home network (wired and wireless) to use the phone's Internet connection? The router is a Linksys WRT54G.

Tether the phone to PC via USB (may need an app). Turn on Internet connection sharing. Plug this PC into the WAN port of the 54G. ICS should provide the IPs as required for other devices that are connected to the 54G.

Edit: not too good for failover (given ICS can only be selected on one network connection).
 
Top