How to Share Data Card Internet Connection Between PC and Android Phone

Sharing of internet connection between computers or between a computer and a smartphone (with WiFi capability) using Wifi Ad-Hoc Networking is popular. But this form of networking is not supported by Android devices. There are ways to make Ad-Hoc networks to work with android devices by configuring files on the device but I am not going to go to that.

Instead there are methods using a software based virtual access point like Windows Seven’s Wireless Hosted Network technology, Virtual Router Manager and Connectify. Windows Seven’s Wireless Hosted Network only runs on windows seven and hardware specific. Virtual Router Manager didn’t work for me. Therefore, I used connectify (newer 2.2 version didn’t work, I used an older version 1.2) and successfully shared my data card connection between my laptop (Dell Latitude E5500 with Windows 7) and my android device (Samsung Galaxy Ace).

Listed below with screenshots are the steps to follow:

On your computer (Laptop/Desktop):

1. Download Connectify 1.2 and install it. Once complete, you can access Connectify from the icon in the Taskbar

Click for higher resolution picture

2. Fill in the settings panel with your prefered WiFi name, password and internet connection to share. For Internet connection, there are options listed as No Internet Sharing, Mobile Broadband Connection, Local Area Connection and Wireless Network Connection. Since I have a data card, I selected Mobile Broadband Connection for Internet

3. Click on “Start Hotspot” to start sharing

4. On your Wireless Connection Status, click Details to get the network connection information, note the IPV4 Address

On your Android device:

5. Go to Settings > Wireless & networks > Wi-Fi Settings

6. Open Advance settings menu

7. Select the Use static IP option

8. Enter your desired IP address (For example: 192.168.2.2)  into Ip Address field

9. Enter your IPV4 Address (For example: 192.168.2.1) into Gateway field

10. Enter 255.255.255.0 into Netmask field

11. Enter your internet connection’s DNS server (use ipconfig /all command to get DNS info) intoDNS 1 and DNS 2. As an alternative, you can alternatively use Google Public DNS: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4

12. Connect to Wi-Fi using your password

13. Disconnect and Reconnect Wi-Fi (or Restart your Android device), if  it doesn’t connect.

14. Check your internet connection on your Android device using a browser

15. When you go back to the Windows 7 machine you can see the device(s) connected. It also keeps track of devices that were previously connected as well.

Connectify does the job of creating a hotspot easily and quickly.

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