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iPhone Is there any way to use personal hotspot to share WIFI, not 3G internet?

H

hatrickpatrick

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 25, 2008
6
0
Little backstory: I have a fairly old Macbook from late 2006 which is starting to wear out. At the moment I really don't have the energy or the funds needed to upgrade it. One of the issues it has is a constantly dropping wifi signal, which I have diagnosed as a problem with the antenna (the left hinge is broken so that would make sense).

Here's the deal. I can get perfect internet coverage but only if I'm literally sitting right beside my router. Consequently, if I use my iPhone as a personal hotspot I get a perfect internet connection.
Obviously when you do this, you're paying through the nose for 3G internet, particularly if you have to stream anything (I'm a music producer so I transfer huge files over the internet quite often).

So what I'm wondering is, if I jailbreak my 4S, is there any way I could use it as a wifi booster / repeater? In other words, connect the iphone to the wifi router, which can be in any part of the house, and then keep the iphone beside the macbook and connect to that wifi through the iphone? Any jailbreak programs which allow this?

I know this isn't a long term solution, but this fault has developed at a time when I'm incredibly busy and really can't afford to have a dodgy internet connection, so this would help me out until I have time to actually go and get the antenna repaired.

Anything?
 
glsillygili said:
no it cant, ive tried it before

but on something unrelated to jailbreaking, i think you should get a range extender like this http://www.amazon.com/Netgear-Universal-WN3000RP-Wi-Fi-Extender/dp/B004YAYM06

or get usb wifi dongle
Click to expand...

Yes MyWi can do that. On the 4 and newer it can take one WiFi network and reboardcast it as it's own network. On all iOS devices, it can tether a computer to a local WiFi network via Bluetooth or USB instead of to a cellular data connection. Both work pretty well.
 
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Intell said:
Yes MyWi can do that. On the 4 and newer it can take one WiFi network and reboardcast it as it's own network. On all iOS devices, it can tether a computer to a local WiFi network via Bluetooth or USB instead of to a cellular data connection. Both work pretty well.
Click to expand...

Oh really? I've tried in on my iPod touch 4g but maybe iPhone 4 is different
 
Surely a much better option is to just get a cheap little NANO wireless usb dongle?

I've got one that works fine even on 802.11N networks and it doesn't get in the way at all.

It only cost £6 (GBP) so around 9 US$

Using your iphone continuously as a wifi repeater will be a massive battery drain and it'll also get hot, potentially reducing its life span. £6 or £100's on phone repairs?
 

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cRuNcHiE said:
Surely a much better option is to just get a cheap little NANO wireless usb dongle?

I've got one that works fine even on 802.11N networks and it doesn't get in the way at all.

It only cost £6 (GBP) so around 9 US$

Using your iphone continuously as a wifi repeater will be a massive battery drain and it'll also get hot, potentially reducing its life span. £6 or £100's on phone repairs?
Click to expand...

It's not so much about money as about speed - have assignments due all week starting Wednesday so I need a fairly instant solution. I'll see if there's anywhere I can buy that locally though. Does it work on OS X? I have an old wireless USB receiver but the mac doesn't recognize it...
 
Disable WiFi on the laptop and buy USB WiFi card. Use the new USB WiFi card to connect to your router.
 
hatrickpatrick said:
It's not so much about money as about speed - have assignments due all week starting Wednesday so I need a fairly instant solution. I'll see if there's anywhere I can buy that locally though. Does it work on OS X? I have an old wireless USB receiver but the mac doesn't recognize it...
Click to expand...

There are lots of these nano wifi adapters about . Just get one that has mac support. My particular one is a 'solwise' one.
I use it on my 'hackintosh' laptop where the internal wifi card is not supported by osx

Or, those MacBooks aren't that hard to take apart. Maybe th antenna has popped off the wifi card?
 
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