[Q] Hotspot ON turns wifi OFF

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I'm still new to smartphones/Androids...

After experimenting with the lastest update, it appears to me that turning on the hotspot option automatically turns off WiFi reception, and vice versa. If I'm wrong about that, please let me know.

Otherwise, I was a surprised and a little disappointed at that, since I can think of several instances in which it would be very useful to establish a wireless connection to the G2, and then re-serve that out as a hotspot.

I'm wondering if it's a hardware, legal, software, or simple greed reason that prevented TMO from making that option available?

Yes the hotspot feature doesnt serve as a repeater of sorts for wifi, it simply turns your 3G 4G signal to wifi. Imagine if you could do that though. You could share your wifi to yourself and somebody on another device could make a wifi call through your wifi, being repeated through your router. Clearly this would cause a glitch in the time/space continuum.

Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using telepathy and unicorn dust!

Originally Posted by KeithAdv

I'm still new to smartphones/Androids...

After experimenting with the lastest update, it appears to me that turning on the hotspot option automatically turns off WiFi reception, and vice versa. If I'm wrong about that, please let me know.

Otherwise, I was a surprised and a little disappointed at that, since I can think of several instances in which it would be very useful to establish a wireless connection to the G2, and then re-serve that out as a hotspot.

I'm wondering if it's a hardware, legal, software, or simple greed reason that prevented TMO from making that option available?

Are you for real? To create the hotspot you're using your wireless card, the same one you'd normally be using to connect to wifi. Greed has little to do with this short of the phone only having a single wireless card. But no worries, laptops can't do this, either, unless they have a second wireless card.

It's a hardware limitation. The wifi chip can only do one thing at a time: either connect to an existing wireless network as a client, or serve it's own internet. Not both.

Got it. Thank you!

first id like to say lol to the time space joke

next... why on earth would u even want to get a wifi signal from ur g2... and then broadcast the signal you get from the wifi? why not just connect whatever your gonna connect to the g2 straight to the source..?

If you are on an airplane using Wifi (which is paid, and usually cheaper from a phone than from a laptop), and someone you want to broadcast that Wifi signal to your laptop and a partner's laptop --- thus not paying twice. It could be useful then.

You can do one laptop with wired tether, but not two or more.

Originally Posted by cparekh

You can do one laptop with wired tether, but not two or more.

Yeah, you can. Share the wifi through the laptop.

Originally Posted by kidd657

first id like to say lol to the time space joke

next... why on earth would u even want to get a wifi signal from ur g2... and then broadcast the signal you get from the wifi? why not just connect whatever your gonna connect to the g2 straight to the source..?

Well, I know now that re-serving/repeating a wifi signal is a physical impossibility with the G2; however, to answer your question, there are several instances where such a capability would be useful:

1. Our company's wireless network is pretty secure. We do also have a server for guest access but the password changes daily. So, if a vendor or other person drops by and wants to show me a demo or catalog that's on-line, I have to hunt down a tech guy who knows today's password. That's been a bit of a time-waste to me in the past.

2. I'm on the road with a few colleagues. I get my hotel room's wireless access set up but I sometimes have to fiddle with my other various wireless devices to get them to work and a colleague might bring a laptop over to my room if we want to work on something. It's not unusual these days for road warriors to take a wireless router with them just for these circumstances.

3. I'm at the airport with a couple colleagues and we're all working. If we all need to get on-line, we each have to buy an hour's access (which never, ever gets fully used) at $10 a pop.

4. I'm at some research facility or client's and I manage to get the wireless key for their network. But, while I'm there, other colleagues drift in and out and it's always another mad dash for them to find the sacred piece of paper with the key.

Now, there are various ways to solve all of the above (and all of them are real-world experiences), but by in each case the easiest and most economical would be for me to re-serve a wireless signal and give my key to my vendors/associates, if the G2 actually had that capability. I know it doesn't and can't now.

Still love it, though.

There's nothing wrong that mobile hotspot and wifi can't co-exist (one is server and another is client).
Same thing happens on my nexus one.