When the office Wi-Fi has died or you're working remote, your phone's cellular data can keep you online. Modern phones make this trivial.

iPhone

  1. Settings → Personal Hotspot
  2. Toggle Allow Others to Join on
  3. Note the Wi-Fi password displayed
  4. On your laptop, connect to the network named after your iPhone

Android

  1. Settings → Network & internet → Hotspot & tethering → Wi-Fi hotspot
  2. Toggle on
  3. View the network name and password (tap "Hotspot password" if hidden)
  4. Connect from your laptop

USB tethering (no Wi-Fi network needed)

Faster, no Wi-Fi password, doesn't drain phone battery as fast:

  1. Plug phone into laptop via USB
  2. iPhone: trust the laptop; tethering appears as a network adapter
  3. Android: in Hotspot & tethering, enable USB tethering

Your laptop sees the connection as an Ethernet adapter and uses it automatically.

Bluetooth tethering

Slowest but uses the least phone battery. Good for emergency email-only use. Steps similar to USB but via Bluetooth pairing.

Mind the data cap

Hotspot data is real cellular data and counts against your plan's cap. Things that eat data fast:

  • Cloud syncs (OneDrive, Dropbox, iCloud) — pause these while tethered
  • Windows Update — disable until you're back on Wi-Fi
  • Video calls — pin your Teams/Zoom to audio-only
  • Background app updates (App Store, Play Store, Microsoft Store)
  • Streaming video, music

A single Teams meeting with video can consume 500 MB-1 GB in an hour.

Set your hotspot connection as "metered" in Windows

This tells Windows to defer background downloads:

  • Settings → Network & Internet → Wi-Fi → click the network → Metered connection → on

Same in macOS: System Settings → Network → click the connection → Details → Low Data Mode → on.

Hotspot won't show up

If your laptop doesn't see the hotspot:

  • Make sure you're not connected to another Wi-Fi (forget it temporarily)
  • Some carriers block hotspot or charge extra for it — check your plan
  • Move closer to the phone
  • Restart the hotspot toggle (off, wait, on)

VPN over hotspot

VPN clients work over hotspot, but they add latency. Connection quality is acceptable for most things; high-frame-rate screen sharing or RDP may struggle.

Carrier hotspot data plans

If you tether often, look at your carrier's hotspot allowance:

  • Many "unlimited" plans cap hotspot data after a small allowance (e.g. 15 GB at full speed, then throttled)
  • Adding a "hotspot add-on" is often cheaper than expected
  • Mobile data plans are tax-deductible for many businesses — worth checking

When to ticket

Raise a ticket if:

  • Office Wi-Fi has been down more than a couple of hours (so others can hotspot too)
  • You need a dedicated cellular modem (some sites use them as backup)
  • Your work involves heavy bandwidth that hotspot can't sustain