Share Your PC Internet Connection With Android

As an Android phone user, you would probably have experienced what its like to match up with your data plan to avoid unpleasant financial issues. Smartphones depend heavily on the Internet and Android is no exception. Unless you are willing to dedicate a reasonable amount of money to afford an unlimited data plan, it's most likely that you are forced to keep your droid unplugged from the Internet  most of the time. Not to mention how dumb your phone would look like with its data turned off.

So, lets find out to lessen the burden via some alternative Internet connections

Local Wi-Fi Hotspots

A better solution is to switch to WiFi Internet. Its cheaper, less power consuming, and faster when compared with mobile Internet. All you need is to find a WiFi hotspot with credentials and off you go. Depending on the provider, you may or may not need to pay a small amount of money. But, most often, hotspots cover a limited range so you need to be within that area; otherwise its not going to work.

Sharing an Internet Connection

Back to the topic;
The greater chances are that you may already have some sort of cheap Internet connection at your home or workplace. So, its going to be a great idea if you can share that same connection with your phone for almost no extra cost.

USB Reverse Tethering

Most Android phones allow sharing mobile Internet with the PC via a USB connection- called USB tethering. But doesn't allow connection sharing in the other direction(ie. PC to mobile phone). However this can be accomplished with the use of a special App such as this one or this. But the phone has to be rooted to get them working properly. Not rooted? cry not. Keep reading..

Setting up Local Wi-Fi Hotspot

It is possible to share Internet via WiFi. With a Wireless router, that's going to be easy, fire up your phone and join the router and you are on.

If you don't have wireless router or your connection is something like a USB dongle, then some other way could be tried.

Wifi Ad-hoc Sharing Issue

Internet can be shared between two similar devices through Wi-Fi using Adhoc networking. Here, both devices behave as equal peers in contrast with hotspot sharing. Unfortunately for some mysterious reason, Android does not support ad-hoc networks by default(thats right). But, it can be enabled through some configurations in a few settings files. Take a look here. This can be a bit risky and may require root privilege. Hopefully, there is another method.

WiFi Hosted Network

On Windows 7, most PC WiFi adapters can be forced to behave in a similar way as a wireless router with proper drivers. The resulting network can be as good as a real wireless router driven hotspot(well, almost). So, now it's time to convert your PC into a WiFi hotspot.
1. Update WiFi drivers and make sure, you have the latest compatible drivers (this would install the virtual adapter drivers)
2. Turn on the WiFi
3. Launch the Command Prompt with Administrator Privileges
*4. Enter

netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=MYWIFI key=PASSWORD keyUsage=persistent

5. Turn on the hotspot by entering

netsh wlan start hostednetwork

If it says

your PC is now a wireless access point, before you join in it with android, the Internet connection should be shared with the access point.

Sharing the Current Connectivity

1. Open 'Network and Sharing Center' using the system tray icon, or via the Control Panel.
2. Goto 'Change Adapter Settings'
* Notice there are two WiFi adapters, later one being the Access Point Driver
3. Open properties of the adapter with Internet connection, and look under 'Sharing' category
4. Tick 'Allow other network users to connect through this computer's internet connection'
5. Select you access point adapter from the dropdown combo and click OK.

Now everything's set for you android, just turn on the WiFi and plug in. If it fails, keep trying a couple of time until you get right.

Turning Hotspot On/Off

Everytime PC's wifi restart, the Access Point is turned off. So, each time you'll need to repeat the 5^th step to turn it On. The 4^th command is used to setup the hotspot with SSID, password etc. Once entered, you can ignore entering it as it's usually remembered by Windows.

To turned hotspot off, enter

netsh wlan stop hostednetwork

Afterwards, If All Fails..

Wifi hardware of the PC might be incompatible to simulate a hotspot. Try reebooting or reinstalling. or else its best to try rooting your phone to get most of out of your device.