Middle_Seat

Since we've established here that many FTers take two or more laptops when traveling, I would like to ask about tethering laptops while traveling. Wirelessly and without additional hardware, if possible.

• Can two wi-fi equipped laptops share one USB 3G modem? The idea would be that one laptop shares (via wifi) its 3G connectivity with the other laptop.
• Can two wi-fi equipped laptops share one paid wi-fi signal?

One laptop runs Win7, the other (a netbook) runs XP.

Thank you.

nchinetti

Connectify is your friend.

zoobtoob

Or you could do it without third party software by "bridging" connections.

I am only familiar with how to do it in XP. I assume MS would include a way to do it in Windows 7 (the XP way was a little bit temperamental at best.)

cblaisd

Maybe.

Never could get it to work. Numerous emails exchanged with tech support. They were baffled because it "should have" worked.

supermasterphil

Works like a charm, another Flyertalker had pointed that one out to me

weekilter

On Macs you just turn on network sharing. You can even password protect the connection if you wish.

nmenaker

Can one even SHARE SHARE like with connectify? that I haven't seen.

If I am connecting to a wifi access point with ONE MAC I haven't been able to share the SAME connection with other devices

For the OP, if you are using a USB 3G modem on ONE PC, you can easily just share THAT connection with your WIFI network card, making a hotspot, no additional software needed. This works from XP through Win 7.

To share a wifi connection to ANOTHER PC via WIFI, that takes VISTA and/or the connectify program listed above. The functionality is built into VISTA just not easy to setup at all. Connectify makes it very easy to do.

but, with just the 3G card connection on one computer, you can just use the normal ICS settings to share the connection via wifi.

star_world

Yes - I've seen this done. The Mac creates a new SSID (appearing as an AP, not a peer to peer connection) which by default is the Mac's computer name. You can connect to this from another device and the traffic will be routed out over the original Internet connection's SSID on the Mac.

nmenaker

hmm, any links to how to do this would be great, I've never seen it.

thanks in advance

FXWizard

In Mac OS X, go to System Preferences/Sharing and there will be a list of sharing options (printer, CD/DVD, etc.) - one of them is called Internet Sharing and it allows you to use the Mac's Airport connection as an access point for other computers.

nmenaker

But, this is only available if one is using a DIFFERENT network connection for the internet connection. If one is using the AIRPORT (wifi on the mac) then the airport is not a valid network connection for sharing and does not appear.

Anyone?

jonu

This is what I am seeing on my 10.6.4 machine...

Middle_Seat

I'm glad that Connectify works for many people, and wish I were one of them. It seems designed to do exactly what I need.

This afternoon I installed it on my Win7 64-bit laptop. Everything seemed to go well, and other devices could then connect to that laptop...but there was no passing of internet data.

The Connectify tray icon became invisible (not even visible if you clicked the little triangle). I used ctrl-alt-del to try to stop the application and the process, but my wifi devices said that Connectify was still somehow running. The laptop froze while trying to Shut Down, until I pressed and held the power button for 5 seconds to force the shutdown.

Next I tried to uninstall Connectify, but that process got stuck and didn't move for several minutes...the last successful step in the uninstall process was "Removing Connectify driver. This may take a few minutes..." Yep, they got that right

So I did another forced shutdown and performed a System Restore, discovering in the process that Connectify had surreptitiously installed the Ask toolbar on the laptop. The System Restore worked, taking the laptop back to a pre-Connectify world.

I really wish that Connectify had worked on my machine, and maybe I'll try installing it again someday.

Global_Hi_Flyer

If you're concerned primarily about sharing a 3G modem, I'd suggest either a MiFi box or a small travel router like the Cradlepoint (I have an older Kyocera made by Cradlepoint) that will accept a 3G modem. No muss, no fuss, and no special drivers or risk of crapware being installed on your machine.

I've seen folks try to share a wifi signal with 2 computers, but unless you're using a wired (or bluetooth) connection between the computers I've never seen it work well at all. We ran a small office network for a couple of days off an ATT wireless signal when the main pipe went down.

rally

Just so I know, how would you connect 2 laptops together ?
just an ethernet cable or do you need special software ?

If one laptop was connected to the internet thru WiFI (say T-mobile HotSpot) would the second laptop get internet thru the ethernet cable ?

It might be interesting in places where WiFi is very expensive

Thanks for any ideas......

rally