Internet can almost be called the lifeblood of our society; if the internet goes down or our phones lose signal, it is like a part of us dies. Whether you view the aforementioned statement as a glum view of today’s society or an undoubtable truth – we are going to make sure you get internet onto your tablet or PC as long as you have a Windows Phone by your side. We are going to dive into two different methods to get LOLcats and the rest of the internet to your PC. The first involves using your phone’s built in tethering ability and carrier support to get the job done; the second involves a bit of a proxy configuration, but we will be sure to walk you through both.

Carrier Tethering The easiest way to turn your Windows Phone into a Wi-Fi hotspot for you devices is to enable carrier tethering. Depending on your specific carrier and their terms of service, you may be able to activate tethering without any additional charge or you may be forced to fork over a bit more money. If you are unsure of which option you will have to take, follow our steps below as you will be given a message telling you to contact your carrier if your current plan does not support tethering. Best VPN providers 2020: Learn about ExpressVPN, NordVPN & more

The Detailed Explanation Begin by unlocking your Windows Phone device and head to Settings, which can be found in your app list by swiping to the left from the home screen. Once within Settings, the fourth option down should be entitled “Internet sharing” – select it. This is the point at which you will discover whether or not your current data plan supports the use of tethering. You will see a single toggle switch for switching Internet Sharing on or off – click it to enable tethering. If the ability is supported, you will now be presented with a collection of other options and you can continue on down below, otherwise you will be presented with an error message telling you to contact your carrier to enable the feature. However, wait! If tethering is not enabled on your current data plan, you can either call your carrier or skip to the next section where we show you how to “tether” on a plan that does not support it. If you phone does support tethering, you should now see a notification telling you can share your internet connection over Wi-Fi with a number of guests. If Internet Sharing is left inactive for a few minutes, it will automatically shut off to conserve battery life – something important to note.

Below the brief description of Internet Sharing, you will now see the Broadcast name of your network, the network’s password, and the number of guests connected. To change any of these settings you can hit the “Setup” button onscreen. It should be noted that you must have a password on your Wi-Fi network, Internet Sharing will not allow you to go without one. The Quick Explanation Go to the Settings area on your Windows Phone. Select “Internet Sharing” from the list. Click the toggle switch to enable tethering (if your data plan does not support it, you can either follow the next section below for an alternative method or contact your carrier to enable it) Hit the Setup button to create a network SSID and password. Connect your devices and being browsing the web. That is it – you are setup and ready to tethering. Simply head over to your PC or other Wi-Fi enabled device and connect to your newly created network. Remember though, you are using your phone’s data and as such, should be conscious not to use too much. If you are using Windows 8, the operating system will automatically detect when you tethered and will try its best to reduce the amount of total data usage. Some programs also recognize this mode, such as Norton’s suite of security programs, which will prevent downloading updates during this time. Tether-X Maybe you are paying your bill’s (which are probably quite expensive), but you still do not have tethering ability and to get such a feature, you must pour out even more of your hard earned cash. That doesn’t seem very fair, does it? You paid for the data and should be able to use it however you like. Under that clause, we are going to show you how to tethering your device even if your carrier does not want you to.

We are going to begin by downloading a free application from the Windows Phone Marketplace entitled Tether-X. You can acquire the app by clicking here, searching for it in the marketplace yourself, or by scanning our handy dandy QR code included below.