smartphone hotspot

I have a 3 1/2 year old phone and ATT. I can talk and surf the web at the same time. Pretty handy for those boring stretches of road in areas like Chicago or Atlanta.

 

Can you use surf the web and use the phone (usng speaker phone or bluetooth) now? If so then yes, you can hotspot it and use the voice services. Not all phones are capable of this. It is a matter of hardware. Many (not all) phones are designed so that data and voice use the same antenna, so only one or the other can be used at any given moment. Many other phones (not all) have separate antenna, so both services can bu used simultaneously.

One thing worth noting is that your phone may heat up pretty good if you are putting the internet, wifi, and voice antennas and chips through their paces. Obviously battery life is will suffer greatly, and using the charger while all three are going full tilt will only add to heat issues.

Hotspotting comes in handy for short little quick things like email. But downloading large files, or Windows updates, while having a long telephone conversation, a dedicated internet device is the way to go.

 

On some of the earlier Verizon phones before 4gLTE it wasn't possible.
I have a POS phone now which won't do both on 3g.


But I have my S3 on as Hotspot all the time anyway.

 

Do it all the time with my galaxy note 3, unlimited verizon, & pdanet app.

 

I have never used a phone for wifi like that so can't comment. But like stated it will use up the battery fast.

Have used the internet aircard back awhile ago on the road with my husband on my computer, they do have more sophisticated devices now than then, but the old one worked great most generally, I only had about 3 GB back then, now at home I go through 20 GB.

There were a few places that the phone didn't have reception, and neither did the internet work. Service drops out on husbands phone in some areas still, not as bad as it was. Olney, IL was a real bad area it seems, Crete, NE is still bad.

It does get expensive if you stay on the internet for things like videos and movies. AT&T has different pricing plans and charges according to how many devices and GB you get. Ours has 3 phones, and 2 devices for laptop, and runs about 325 a month if I can keep it from going over GB. Have insurance on at least 4 items I believe.

 

Get the app PDA.net. Then you can tether or Bluetooth to your phone.

 

also a app called foxfi but doesnt work with all phones

 

if you have an android phone. the answer is yes, as long as your on 4g. doesn't work on 3g.

if you have an iphone. the answer is only on att and tmo. 3g or 4g. i have no idea why not on sprint or verizon.

the only problem with being on 4g, is it's not trusted. i've had a lot of verizon 4g where i can't get the internet to work at all. and i've had a lot of verizon 4g when i could call but still not surf. so, you all can say verizon has the best 4g coverage in the country. but it's really not 4g. and like one of the above posts. a lot of times, the speed isn't there either. and it seems to be happening more and more frequently.

as for tethering, verizon has a built in app. pretty much every app out there now, is designed to only work if you have a paid hotspot subscription. so there's really no sense in using them anymore. specially if the app is already built in.

i also have a sprint phone for unlimited data, and i had to root the phone to use the only app i could find that DOESN'T require a hotspot subscription.

 

Only earlier Vzw phones weren't capable of it.
Most newer phones are.
I can talk/surf 3g all day long on my S3 or the S4 (before I broke it)
Can't speak for Sprint, except it's not like you'll get the 3g to work anyway.
Supposedly it always worked on ATT/TMO.

For Verizon FoxFi STILL WORKS on Jellybean on the S3/S4s.
Those are the ones I have PERSONALLY used on JB.
So likely the S5 and Note series it will also work but haven't used it.

I could not get FoxFi/PDA Net Wifi Hotspot to work the 1 or 2 weeks I had Sprint. (on a Galaxy S3)
So I guess they do a better job of blocking it.