Most of the smartphones these days come with two wireless connectivity options – WiFi and 2G/3G/4G network of your cellular provider. The second option usually requires that you subscribe to one or other of the data plans. These plans can be prepaid or post-paid plans. In any case, the data subscription costs you some money. But if you already have a broadband connection for your desktop computer or laptop, then why not use it on your smartphone? You can turn your Windows PC into a wireless WiFi hotspot and share its broadband internet connection to all the WiFi capable devices that you or your family members have.
By default the WiFi in your computer acts as a network interface device which can be used to connect to other WiFi access points (hotspots) like your WiFi router. But if you do not have a WiFi router, then you can turn your computer into a software based WiFi access point using the free software WiFi HotSpot.
After the installation of WiFi HotSpot software, it launches automatically. In the Status section of the software, you can choose your WiFi hotspot’s SSID name and an access password. By default, the password is given to be 12345678 but you should use a stronger password to avoid the misuse of your WiFi internet connection.
In the Settings section, you can choose the the internet connection in your Windows PC that you want to share through the WiFi hotspot (usually it is the Ethernet connection). You can also choose the maximum number of clients allowed to connect to your hotspot at a single time.
You can switch on the WiFi hotspot by clicking on the On switch in the WiFi HotSpot window. You can also right-click on the system tray icon of WiFi HotSpot and choose Enable HotSpot from the right-context menu. Similarly, when you want to stop the hotspot, you can choose to turn off your WiFi hotspot by choosing Disable HotSpot from the system tray right-click menu.
When your hotspot is on, the LED light of your Windows PC’s WiFi will blink continuously indicating that your hotspot is working and accepting the devices to connect to it. You can find this hotspot on your smartphone (or any other WiFi capable device), enter the password and connect to enjoy your broadband internet connection on it. The Connections section of the WiFi HotSpot software shows the details of all the devices connected to your WiFi hotspot.
Conclusion: The WiFi HotSpot software allows you to easily create a soft AP (WiFi hotspot) on your Windows PC so that you can share your broadband connection to the rest of your WiFi ready devices. This configuration can also be used as a WiFi repeater to increase the WiFi signal reach to larger distances.
You can download WiFi HotSpot software from http://wifi-hotspot.gearboxcomputers.com/.