Member Avatar for manchurianCEO

Hello,

I can tether from my smartphone to my laptop via both hot spot and usb cable which is helpful when there is no other option, thought it is not not so fast.

The thing is that I fix relatives' and friends' computers now and then, usually desktops with out wifi capabilities. I do not have a cable long enough to reach my room from where the modem is located. A reasonable solution can be to get a usb receiver but I'm curious to know, is there a way to tether wifi from my laptop to a desktop just like I tether from my phone to my laptop?

I just thought, also, anyone knows a way to tether from a phone to a computer via usb BUT basically resending my houses signal through USB instead of my own phone's 3G?

Thank you!

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Yes — use your laptop as the router and share its connection to the desktop over Ethernet. On Windows, this is Internet Connection Sharing (ICS). Steps: (1) get the laptop online (phone USB/Wi‑Fi tether or your home Wi‑Fi), (2) plug a regular Ethernet cable between laptop and desktop — most NICs auto‑MDI/MDIX; if link lights do not come up, try a crossover or a cheap switch, (3) on the laptop, enable ICS on the adapter that has internet and select the Ethernet adapter as the one to share to. Windows will set the laptop’s Ethernet to 192.168.137.1 and hand out DHCP to the desktop; if DHCP fails, set the desktop to IP 192.168.137.2, gateway/DNS 192.168.137.1. See Microsoft’s ICS guide and typical addressing details for reference: Microsoft Learn: Set up ICS and ICS defaults (192.168.137.x). This is essentially what suggested: make the laptop the router.

If your laptop runs Linux, enable forwarding and NAT (replace interface names as needed). Ubuntu documents this approach here: .

# On the laptop (Linux)
sudo sysctl -w net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
sudo iptables -A FORWARD -i <lan_iface> -o <internet_iface> -j ACCEPT
sudo iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o <internet_iface> -j MASQUERADE

About using the phone as a USB “Wi‑Fi adapter” for the desktop: Android’s official wording is to share your phone’s mobile data; some models can share an existing Wi‑Fi connection, but many carriers/OEMs disable that. If USB tethering is greyed out when the phone is on Wi‑Fi, it is not supported on that device. See: . In that case, ’s idea of a small USB Wi‑Fi adapter (or powerline kit) is the simplest hardware fix.

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Member Avatar for Pjieter

Hello,

I can tether from my smartphone to my laptop via both hot spot and usb cable which is helpful when there is no other option, thought it is not not so fast.

The thing is that I fix relatives' and friends' computers now and then, usually desktops with out wifi capabilities. I do not have a cable long enough to reach my room from where the modem is located. A reasonable solution can be to get a usb receiver but I'm curious to know, is there a way to tether wifi from my laptop to a desktop just like I tether from my phone to my laptop?

I just thought, also, anyone knows a way to tether from a phone to a computer via usb BUT basically resending my houses signal through USB instead of my own phone's 3G?

Thank you!

Not sure I understood your question completely, but maybe you want to consider buying one of these?

I used to have one of these (not the exact same model, but using the same idea), and worked pretty well. The speed was not that great, but for using from time to time, it's ok.

Member Avatar for rubberman

You should be able to tether to a desktop with the phone, just like your laptop. Plug it in to a USB port on the desktop and enable the tethering feature. The desktop should recognize it as a USB broadband modem, and install the correct drivers (Windows), or just work (Linux/Mac - PPP USB modem). I do this with my Linux desktop workstation for situations when the DSL connection is down.

Member Avatar for Pjieter

[snipped] does anyone actually read title and question before answering???

He suggests using his laptop to 'stream' internet to his desktop, because the desktop doesn't have an option to connect to the web. Now, what I suggested is not an answer to that question, but I suggest an alternative method. Nothing wrong with that, I think?
Of course, feel free to create a solution to the problem in your own way :)

Edited by WaltP because: n/a
Member Avatar for rubberman

As for "tethering" the desktop to the laptop, you can configure the laptop to do routing for the desktop. In effect, it becomes the router, and optionally a dhcp server. It's quite simple for Linux, and I know it can also be done for Windows, but I have not done it myself. My brother-in-law did that once when were were at his parent's house for Christmas one year, so we could all access the Internet via one laptop that had a broadband modem attached. All the computers were networked via a WiFi access point.

Edited by rubberman because: n/a
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