Help Trying to use my Phone as a internet modem to power wireless router

[DadOfThree]

Hi Folks,


Due to storm isaias, our internet is down, but we have power. I have a USB-C Network Adapter that I thought I could get working. I'm using my laptop as a test to see if I can get internet from the phone to work on the laptop, but nothing is working yet.


Here's what happens.

First, I plug in the Network adapter to my phone, and then the hook up the network cable to both connector and Windows 10 laptop.
On the laptop, I see, "Unidentified Network", with "No Internet".
On the phone, I see, "Ethernet Cable Connected" "Tap to Setup".
When I click on, "Tap to Setup", There is a button to enable the option to, "Connect to Ethernet Network".
I've tried to select this button, but all it does is say, "Turning on", but it times out and doesn't do anything.

I tried disabling wireless on both devices. But that doesn't help.


Any ideas here?

 

[mikedt]

First thought, check your carrier allows tethering? Especially if you're in the US, where you may have to pay an extra tethering fee, to share the phone's Internet access with other devices.

 

[DadOfThree]

I use my mobile hotspot all the time and didn't think that would be the problem. Although I could be overlooking something, am I misunderstanding terminology? When I enable the mobile hotspot and let my kids use their tablets from my phone, I'm pretty sure that's tethering.

 

[Deleted User]

Do you have tethering / hotspot turned on in the phone settings. if your laptop has wifi or you have a direct usb cable have you tried that first.
The router or ethernet connection I can't help you with as I assumed that was not possible.

 

[Hadron]

Hotspot = tethering, or specifically wireless tethering. Wired tethering would be connecting your phone to your laptop via USB and the laptop using your phone's internet connection that way. "Reverse tethering" is using a cable to provide an internet connection to your phone.

My guess is that when you connect your network adapter to the phone it identifies it as an ethernet source and is attempting to set up for reverse tethering, which of course isn't working because there is no internet connection at the other end. This is anyway the opposite of what you want, but it would explain it sitting there and timing out.

You may be able to set up wired tethering between phone and laptop using a USB cable - just a USB cable, not a network adapter. But I don't believe you'll be able to connect the phone to the router and then have the router forward the connection via WiFi or cable: the router's input socket will be expecting the signal protocol your phone network provides, not the protocol the phone outputs during wired tethering (which I'd expect will be more like the output of the router than the input to it).