Whether for business or pleasure, having a connection to the Internet is part of our daily life. What happens, if you don’t have a cable or WiFi connection to Internet? We carry a potential solution with us, and it is our cell phone. If your cell phone has a Web browser, it may act as a tether between another device and the Internet. Using your phone is a cost effective solution to purchasing a USB data card as a mobile connection to the Internet. Why pay for two services, when you already have one that can do the job?

Internet enabled featured phones and smartphones often support tethering to the phones modem using a USB cable, or Bluetooth. When acting as just a modem, your phone connects a single device to the Internet via the phone. It is similar to connecting to the Internet via a cable modem connected directly to your computer.

The modem’s job is to convert signals from one communications protocol to another protocol. Thus, the phone converts GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) or UTMS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) to a data signal required by a USB cable or for Bluetooth. For GSM feature phones, the problem is the speed of the Internet service.

GPRS is a GSM technology standard for sending data over a voice network. GPRS is an old technology, and only supports a maximum speed of 48 Kbps. EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution) is a newer version of GPRS that supports data speeds up to 128Kbps. However, the actual data rate is highly subject to loading of the GSM network. UTMS, however, operates on a separate cell phone band and supports much higher data rates. Costa Rica cell phone services support GPRS, EDGE, and UTMS.

Every phone implements the USB cable, or Bluetooth, connection between the phone and a computer in a different way. To make an Internet connection to the phone from your computer, you will have to read the manual for your phone.

Turning a phone into a WiFi hotspot is an alternative for smartphones. Although your phone may be able to connect to a WiFi hotspot, it may not support being a WiFi hotspot. It all depends on the WiFi chip set used in the phone. The advantage of WiFi tethering is that you can tether five to eight devices to the phone.

For Android phones, you need to check the phone specifications in your phone manual, usually in one of the appendixes. If you can’t find your manual, you can find the specifications at GSM Arena. If the WLAN entry contains the words “WiFi hotspot,” your phone can act as a WiFi hotspot. In order to configure the phone as a WiFi hotspot, you will need to download an app from the Android Market. There are a number of apps that do not require you to root the phone, such as Quick Settings and WiFi HotSpot / WiFi Tether.

For Nokia phones, you need to install the JoikuSpot app from the Ovi Market. I would recommend buying JoikuSpot Premium as it allows you to password protect your network. With the free version, your phone becomes a public WiFi hotspot. I have used JoikuSpot on a Nokia E71 and a Nokia E5. You can check to see if your phone is compatible at the Joiku website.

Before using your phone as a WiFi hotspot, you should make a few configuration changes. You should change the Network SSID (Network name) to a more unique name, and you need to set a password. Unless your WiFi hotspot is password protected, it is a public WiFi hotspot, so take care to use a strong password and protect yourself (and your private information).

There is one caveat to using a phone as a WiFi hotspot. An actual WiFi router operates in network infrastructure mode, while a phone operates in network ad-hoc mode. The phone is not a real network router. An ad-hoc network does not create an internal network, nor does it act as a DHCP server. Rather the phone makes a peer-to-peer connection with each device. This means that the connected devices act like they are tethered to the phone’s modem. In this sense, it is similar to tethering with a USB cable, or Bluetooth. This should not a problem for laptops, iPod Touches, or iPads. However, it is a problem for Android tablets, as they will not connect to an ad-hoc WiFi hotspot. Solving this problem does require root access to Android tablet.