using a tethered mobile to get WWW to several PCs, some not wireless able.

[rans6andrew]

Is it possible, simply, to supply an internet connection to a number of PCs, some wired to a router and some wireless to the same router normally, from a single tethered mobile phone?

Typically, when we are both working at home, there will be 2 wired and 2 wireless computers running plus intermittent use of phones and tablets taking the internet through our router. Tomorrow, we are changing ISP and will be changing our modem. Both ISPs have warned that there will be some "downtime" as we are also changing from copper to fibre between the green box outside and our local exchange. I could run around with a mobile phone plugging into each machine in turn........

Thanks,

Andrew.

[le Pingouin]

I don't know how simple this will be but it should be possible to tether the phone to one computer that will act as host and set up Internet connection sharing on it. I'd choose one connected via ethernet to the router to maximise overall speed. Don't know if you'll need to fiddle with IP address assignment via the router.

This might be helpful: https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-share-your-internet-connection-on-windows-2377463

[DIBO]

Or alternatively, check if your current router provides for a Wireless WAN connection (to the phone In your case), then everything else remains unchanged
How-to-configure-PR2000-with-Wireless-WAN-Mode (https://kb.netgear.com/24571/How-to-configure-PR2000-with-Wireless-WAN-Mode)

[andytug]

Some routers also allow a USB connection to a 3/4G capable device (usually as a backup for ADSL/fibre connection failure) , might be worth a look.

[Capn Bloggs]

Caveat: you are allowed to hotspot your phone.

Hotspot the two wireless computers direct to your phone.

Buy a couple of el-cheepo wireless adapters (go into the USB) for each wired computer, like these:

https://www.ple.com.au/Products/619484/TP-LINK-WN725N-150Mbps-Wireless-N-USB-Nano-Adapter

May even be cheaper than having to get a sim card for the 3g router andytug mentions.

[jimjim1]

To add one more thing not already mentioned -

Windows 10 can be used as a WiFi hot spot. Not sure about 8/8.1. Fairly sure 7 cannot.

[rans6andrew]

Thanks to all responders, some good stuff learned.

The ISP change over has happened, smoothly, without recourse to using my 4G mobile as a connection bridge. It was still on the old ISP at 6:35am but by 8:30am it was alive on the new. Nearly. We were sold 35Mb speed optical fibre but we are currently getting just 11Mb on both downlink and uplink. When the ISP tested our old copper connection it was able to sustain 17Mb so we haven't really seen a worthwhile improvement. I'll get the account holder to talk to them.

Incidentally, when my new 4G phone arrived last week I ran the same broadband speed checker while I was in a cafe in the village (1/2 a mile from home) and it managed 52Mb, several times in a row.

What rate is WiFi likely to be able to manage? The new modem/router doesn't have a proper spec sheet supplied.

Andrew.

[G0ULI]

The speeds advertised by internet providers are notoriously optimistic. They assume an optimum connection to sites capable of providing the highest speed downloads. So while 35Mb may be the advertised speed, around half that speed will be typical, particularly when accessing popular sites or at busy times of the day such as mornings and between 7pm and 11pm in the evening when loads are highest. It may not be your end of the connection that is slow, just the system at the other end of the line struggling to deal with all the requests for data.

Don't forget that when speeds are written as 35Mb per second, the internet provider actually means 35 mega bits per second, not bytes; so eight times slower than you might be expecting.

The latest generation of modems usually take a couple of days or so to tune themselves to your usage patterns and the line characteristics to the exchange. Even optical fibre signals suffer errors and interference that needs correcting.

Then of course it takes time for your computer to actually react to the influx of information. If you can sustain a couple of HD streams on two different computers in the home without stuttering, that is probably as good as you can expect from consumer grade kit. Anything better, you need permanent leased lines and a very fat wallet.

[DIBO]

We were sold 35Mb speed optical fibre but we are currently getting just 11Mb on both downlink and uplink.You are testing wired and using speedtest.net (or similar), right?? I would be surprised that you don't get 35Mb link speed on the fibre, but ISPs always overbook their backbones, for ex. 100 35Mb endusers on a 350Mb backbone, so factor 10 overbooking. But they rarely put the overbooking factor in their tech.specs. If you found this 11Mb on the tech.config/homepage inside your router, call your ISP.
What rate is WiFi likely to be able to manage? The new modem/router doesn't have a proper spec sheet supplied.Specs should normally be 150Mb or more, in lab conditions you get 90%of this, in real live, maybe half or less. Wi-Fi speed can be heavely impacted by so many factors... many Wi-Fi neighbours? Use InSSIDer or similar tool to find free channels (unless you router is advanced enough to dynamically adjust channel use). Router could/shoud be dual band 2.4 & 5Ghz, recent laptops, tablets can use both...Try to find out what specs it really has, some ISP oriented forums are sometimes pretty good at finding out these specs even If the router is repackaged/rebranded by your ISP.

[rans6andrew]

There is just one thing I don't understand about our new router. Several mobile phones, an android tablet, 3 desktop computers and a laptop all accepted the new router password and worked as normal, straight away. A Samsung netbook, however, connected to the new router but only connected to the router, it refused to connect to the internet. I tried the normal win7 diagnose/repair in the network tool. It failed, several times. Then I found a Samsung utility called Easy Network Manager, lurking on the desktop. I ran it up and within seconds it had sorted the connection through the router to the WWW. I have used this netbook to browse the internet on many different routers and it has never played up before. It has been all over the place both here and abroad, it has never failed to connect through wireless routers to the big wide world.

Why might it have failed this time?

Andrew.

[le Pingouin]

DNS issue with the netbook perhaps?