iPhone Personal Hotspot won't stay connected

[prvt.donut]

Searching for this problem that has plagued me since I can remember ever having to use the personal hotspot feature, over the years I have had periods of time, where I have needed to rely on iOS to iOS personal hotspot features and have always been frustrated at the constant disconnections, but usually the time of need was short and so I gave up wasting my time trying to find a solution, hoping that Apple would at some point fix this annoyance.

Well, here I am again, on a business trip to Moscow and needing to hop WiFi networks (company phone is AT&T, on an international plan, but Russia is out of scope and it is carrier locked so I can’t put a local SIM in it (and the employee registered to contact AT&T is on vacation)).

I have a colleague with an Android phone who shared his WiFi once with me and whenever he is in my vicinity, my WiFi joins his network before I even have to think about it! Fabulous. But the other iPhone I have that I was able to get a SIM put into will only stay connected for as long as the phone is unlocked!

So, is there a way to make this work? Or am I being pushed more and more towards Android as my mobile OS?

 

[cfurlin]

Lucky you. I can’t get mine to shut off. I turn it off and when I look at my phone later, it’s back on.

 

[2ndHalfCor]

Searching for this problem that has plagued me since I can remember ever having to use the personal hotspot feature, over the years I have had periods of time, where I have needed to rely on iOS to iOS personal hotspot features and have always been frustrated at the constant disconnections, but usually the time of need was short and so I gave up wasting my time trying to find a solution, hoping that Apple would at some point fix this annoyance.

Well, here I am again, on a business trip to Moscow and needing to hop WiFi networks (company phone is AT&T, on an international plan, but Russia is out of scope and it is carrier locked so I can’t put a local SIM in it (and the employee registered to contact AT&T is on vacation)).

I have a colleague with an Android phone who shared his WiFi once with me and whenever he is in my vicinity, my WiFi joins his network before I even have to think about it! Fabulous. But the other iPhone I have that I was able to get a SIM put into will only stay connected for as long as the phone is unlocked!

So, is there a way to make this work? Or am I being pushed more and more towards Android as my mobile OS?

Did you ever find a solution to this problem? I've been searching on the 'net and the best I can find are Apple fans saying this is not a bug, it's a feature! I'm used to having a Note 8 and an iPhone 8 and decided to try the new, less expensive, iPad that supports the Apple Pencil to write and take notes. I use the iPad connected with the iPhone (no other wifi in my normal working locations) but every time I pick up the iPad and unlock the screen, it has disconnected from the iPhone hotspot and I have to manually reconnect in order to have the use of the internet. Since I'm using OneNote on multiple devices, it has to sync across devices and the iPad locks the screen and disconnects even before OneNote is done syncing. So I go in from my desktop, for example, and the note I was working on on the iPad isn't synced over. Very frustrating to have to constantly turn on the hotspot connection on the iPad. If I can't find a solution, I'm going to have to take it back and go back to taking notes using my Samsung device.

Thanks in advance for any assistance with a solution or work-around.