Sharing your phone’s mobile data connection

Sharing your phone’s mobile data connection

You can share your phone’s mobile data connection with a single computer via a USB cable: USB tethering. You can also share your phone’s data connection with up to eight devices at once, by turning your phone into a portable Wi-Fi hotspot. (Not all carriers and phones support these features.)

When your phone is sharing its data connection, an icon appears in the Status bar and as an ongoing notification in the Notifications panel (see “Managing notifications” on page 29).

For the latest information about tethering and portable hotspots, including supported operating systems and other details, visit android.com/tether.

Share your phone’s data connection via USB

If your computer is running Windows 7 or a recent distribution of some flavors of Linux (such as Ubuntu), you typically don’t need to prepare your computer for tethering. But if you’re running an earlier version of Windows or another operating system, you may need to prepare your computer to establish a network connection via USB. For the most current information about which operating systems support USB tethering and how to configure them, visit android.com/tether.