Tethering / hotspot
Also known as: hotspot, mobile hotspot, personal hotspot, internet tethering
Tethering shares your phone’s cellular connection with another device, turning the phone into a mobile hotspot over Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or USB. Any data the connected device uses counts against your phone’s cellular allowance.
- Shares a phone’s cellular connection with other devices
- Works over Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or USB
- All tethered use counts against your data cap
How tethering works
When you tether, your phone acts as a small router: it takes its cellular data connection and re-shares it so a laptop, tablet, or another phone can get online through it. You can share over Wi-Fi (the most common), Bluetooth, or a USB cable.
On iOS this is Settings > Personal Hotspot; on Android it is Settings > Network & internet > Hotspot & tethering. Some carrier plans limit or charge extra for hotspot use.
Watch the data allowance
Everything the tethered device does — downloads, streaming, cloud backups, big app updates — pulls from your phone’s cellular plan, so a hotspot can burn through a data cap quickly. A laptop syncing files in the background is an easy way to overshoot.
Tethering does not use storage on either device; it only routes network traffic. To avoid surprise overages, keep large transfers and backups for true Wi-Fi rather than a tethered connection.