Kolanaki@pawb.social 3 weeks ago
Do you normally have SIMless service? 🤨
Might be someone wanting to share the WiFi on something like a tablet. Or someone using an Android phone as an “iPod Touch”, basically everything the phone has minus cellular capabilities but still wanting to share the WiFi with other devices.
I could see this being very popular on flights and cruises where they charge you per device to pay for this one device and then share with other devices.
My phone does that just fine. It’s a Samsung limitation. All it does is create an access point and forward traffic via its default route.Image
Your phone works without service?
Of course it does(*)
(*): assuming you mean “works” in the sense of “turns on, lets me use it just fine, does everything that does not require an active cell connection”
zurohki@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
My phone will hotspot when it’s connected to WiFi. I can even tether it to a desktop PC and use it as a WiFi adapter.
forrgott@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Well, technically that’s not a “hotspot”. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it’s a Wi-Fi extender.
mp3@piefed.ca 3 weeks ago
And a poor Wi-Fi extender as well, since you halve your network bandwidth by using an extender with a single radio chip.
turbowafflz@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’ve only seen that option on phones with two radios, it uses the 2.4GHz radio for one connection and the 5GHz radio for the other
kernelle@0d.gs 3 weeks ago
I’ll have to disagree on that one, WiFi extenders extend an existing network, keeping the same network and DHCP is done by the original access point.
A hotspot creates a new network, and DHCP is handled by the hotspot, not the network on the WAN side.