Mobile Phone wi-fi hotspot...

[Rawns]

This is annoying me now. I've brought my iPad in with me to work as I'm interested in testing out the wi-fi hotspot capability on my HTC Desire HD. Directly on my phone, when I check my e-mails, browse web pages etc, it's usually a quick response in the office with minimal delay. When I set up the wi-fi hotspot on my phone and connect my iPad to it, everything just keeps timing out on the iPad - web pages don't load, e-mail comes back with a timeout, twitter feed just hangs. Anyone else had issues with mobile hotspots and getting them to work? Mobile signal in this area is excllent so it must be down to something between the phone and iPad.

 

Edit: Just to clarify too, I'm on O2. I've seen a few posts in relation to issues on Orange.

Edited June 7, 2012 by Rawns

[round2it]

iphone to ipad works fine for me tmobile

 

have not got htc desire sorry

[mdench]

I had this once Galaxy Note (android2.3) on o2 and i found my laptop wouldnt pick up an IP address properly from my phone and found that restarting my phone a couple times cleared the issue... never happened since

[Rawns]

Thanks @mdench. I've tried this a few times with no success. Also tried amending the IP address of the phone and the IP range that it can assign to devices. No luck with this either!

[Rawns]

 

Thought I'd give O2's support site a go and was offered to chat to a 'guru'. I can only describe it as a WTF moment after he try's to help me with something that was not my issue, then the chat conveniently goes offline!

 

info:Welcome to O2. A Guru will be with you soon.

info:You're through to Guru Edward.

Edward:Hi I'm Edward. How can I help?

Paul:Hi, I'm trying to use the wi-fi hotspot app on my mobile to allow me to browse the net on my iPad however I cannot actually access any web pages when it's connected to my phone. I can however browse the web/check e-mails directly on my phone.

Edward:I'll help you with this.

Edward:May i know your full name and mobile number please?

Paul:Paul Rawnsley - ***********

Edward:May i know the last two digit of your security question?

Paul:I'm not sure what it is sorry.

Edward:The question ******************?

Paul:Last two digits should be **

Edward:Perfect.

Edward:Thanks for the information. Please give me a few minutes while I check this for you.

Edward:Is there anything else I can help you with?

Edward:Sorry for the above statement.

Edward:Thanks for waiting.

Edward:Please go to settings > General > Network > Personal hotspot > make it on.

Paul:ok

Edward:Than you'll be able to connect your phone with i pad.

Paul:ok, ipad is now connected.

Edward:Great.

Edward:Is there anything else I can help you with?

Paul:Thats not my issue though...

Paul:I can connect the iPad to the mobile using tethering, I just cannot access the internet via the phone network when it is connect.

Edward:I'm helping you with the same thing.

Edward:Did you make personal hotspot option on?

error:Chat is unavailable.

 

To be honest, I already made the assumption they would be of little help and thought it was worth a punt...

[round2it]

script monkey at its best

 

does your contract allow tethering?

[bladedanny]

Does it work for a bit then go off? I have a HTC Desire HD on 3. Tethering works great but after a while the phone turns off 3G to save power? to bring it back up I just have to wake the phone up so it finds a 3G signal again.

 

Might not be what you're experiencing, but thought I'd mention it.

[Rawns]

script monkey at its best

 

does your contract allow tethering?

 

@round2it - Not sure actually, I did not even know it could be part of a contract? Just assumed it was an app on the phone allowing net access to any devices I attach to it.

 

Edit: Just checked and it does allows tethering. Seems I have 'The works' data-plan which covers data tethering up to 1Gb.

 

@bladedanny - Thanks for the info. It's not even getting that far. The iPad connects quite happly to the wifi network, gets allocated an IP, but it just won't load anything data related.

Edited June 7, 2012 by Rawns

[bladedanny]

Does it work when connected via a cable to a laptop or other device?

 

A daft question but worth checking, you've not got proxy settings entered onto the iPad or anything from a previous connection?

[round2it]

some carriers do not allow tethering

unless it is part of your package

[Rawns]

Does it work when connected via a cable to a laptop or other device?

 

A daft question but worth checking, you've not got proxy settings entered onto the iPad or anything from a previous connection?

 

Not tested tethering against any other device, and not got one to hand at the moment to try it. The iPad works fine at home on my Wi-Fi and as it's my personal one, there are no proxy details stored on it.

 

some carriers do not allow tethering

unless it is part of your package

 

Just checked and it does allows tethering. Seems I have 'The works' data-plan which covers data tethering up to 1Gb.

[sted]

when the ipad cant get to the net can the phone itself i often get yes you have a great signal icons but no data works even on the phone itself

[bladedanny]

Just another thought, under settins > wireless & networks > hotspot settings > manage users. Is allowed users only ticked. Maybe this is causing an issue?

[Rawns]

when the ipad cant get to the net can the phone itself i often get yes you have a great signal icons but no data works even on the phone itself

 

Yep, just tested. I can browse the net as normal (and no sign of slow down either) on the mobile while the iPad just hangs, then pops up with 'the request timed out'.

[Rawns]

Just another thought, under settins > wireless & networks > hotspot settings > manage users. Is allowed users only ticked. Maybe this is causing an issue?

 

Allowed users only is disabled.

[bladedanny]

Allowed users only is disabled.

 

Running out of ideas lol. What's dns like on the iPad? can you ping the phone or website IP? can you access a website via its IP address?

[Rawns]

Running out of ideas lol. What's dns like on the iPad? can you ping the phone or website IP? can you access a website via its IP address?

 

Well, looking at the wifi settings on the iPad, I can see the DHCP details are correct. It's been assigned an IP and I can see the IP for the router and DNS are correct. Can't try pinging until I'm home.

[bladedanny]

Well, looking at the wifi settings on the iPad, I can see the DHCP details are correct. It's been assigned an IP and I can see the IP for the router and DNS are correct. Can't try pinging until I'm home.

 

Could you manually set DNS to google's DNS servers or similar? Just as a fault finding exercise.

[Admiral208]

I have a desire s and I have trouble tethering to my macbook. I can tether to my windows laptop without any problems.

 

Its an unusual role reversal where it works first time on windows and not with an apple device.

 

I gave up in the end... Sorry, not much of a helpful post.

[Rawns]

Just got home and tested the mobile hotspot on my Win 7 PC. Connected via wi-fi with no issues but it was flagged as having 'no internet' whilst I was connected. Seems like it's not a device specific issue. Edited June 7, 2012 by Rawns