What’s the difference between using a hotspot and tethering?
In: 68
Nothing. They’re the same thing. You’re tethering a device to a hotspot (if you want to just use both words together) so you can use its internet connection for your device.
The device you’re hotspotting or tethering is acting as a router. Instead of the router connecting to a DSL, cable, fiber etc. internet connection, it’s connected to a cellular internet and provides that for other devices.
Hotspot means other devices connect with wifi to the “router” device. Tether means other devices are directly wired to the “router” device.
In the olden days, Wifi based sharing wasn’t the way you accessed the internet from your phone. You more commonly used a USB cable. Hence your phone was tethered to PC/laptop, a wireless device tied down to something more anchored to the ground.
Hotspot specifically refers to the WiFi version of sharing your internet, which has largely won the popularity contest for cellular data sharing.
In the general tech vernacular
* Tethering is hooking up one device to a phone, via a USB cable, and that one device using the phones connection to access the internet.
* A Hotspot it turning your phone into a temporary wifi router than multiple devices can connect to over wifi to use the phones connection to access the internet
Tethering used to mean physically tethering with a cable to access the internet from your phone. Now, people don’t do that anymore, so the act of using a hotspot is called tethering.
Hotspots use the same standards and protocols as a wireless router when connecting a device to the hotspot. Hotspots present themselves to devices as a Wifi router and work just like wifi routers.
Tethering is a shim that uses an application to bridge the network connection between two devices by acting as a USB network connection to the device and then using the application’s access to the network on the phone.
Check out Verizon JetPack. That is an example of a HotSpot. Tethering is when you use a cell phone.
Tethering is physically connecting the host to the client with a USB cable, Hotspotting is essentially turning your device into a Wi-Fi router/access point and connecting to it with other devices WIRELESSLY.
People use those words interchangeably these days because tethering was mostly a thing of the past (Some phones still have it), so when someone says “Tether” they are most likely referring to a “Hotspot”
Venn diagram:
Tethering includes both WIRED and WIRELESS tethering. Wireless tethering is basically hotspotting. Effectively, it accomplishes the same thing–using a phone for an internet connection so your other devices, like a laptop or tablet or even other phones can get online.
Tethering – the phone provides Internet to ONLY one device, like a laptop, using a USB cable or possibly Bluetooth.
Hotspot – the phone creates a wireless network to which one OR MORE devices can connect to.
USB tethering has the benefit of being faster and it charges your phone.
WiFi Hotspotting can be slower, and it can drain your battery faster.
Bluetooth tethering is possible, but very slow and should be the last resort.
Reverse tethering is also possible where you can get Internet on your phone through a computer. This can be useful for gaming or big downloads as you can get the fastest and most reliable internet on the phone.
Latest Answers