How to Set Up and Use Personal Hotspot on iPhone

Ever been stuck in a situation where you need to get a computer or tablet online with no Wi-Fi nearby? If you have an iPhone with a 3G or 4G data connection or better, that problem can be easily solved with a Personal Hotspot.

Personal Hotspot is a feature of iOS that lets iPhones running iOS 4.3 and higher share a cellular data connection with other nearby devices through Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or USB. This feature is known as tethering.

When you use Personal Hotspot, your iPhone acts like a wireless router for the other devices, transmitting and receiving data for these devices. If you have the available data on your cellular plan, it's an excellent alternative to using public Wi-Fi hotspots.

To use Personal Hotspot on an iPhone, you'll need:

• An iPhone 4 or newer.
• iOS 4.3 or higher.
• A data plan that supports tethering or Personal Hotspot.
• A USB cable, if you want to connect devices that way.

Most major phone companies include Personal Hotspot by default as part of their data plans for the iPhone. AT&T and Verizon include it on all their plans, while T-Mobile offers it as part of its unlimited data plan. Sprint charges for it, with prices depending on how much data you want to use.

Most regional carriers and pay-as-you-go carriers support Personal Hotspot as part of their data plans, as well. If you're not sure whether you have Personal Hotspot on your data plan, check with your phone company.

Another way to know if you have Personal Hotspot is to check on the iPhone. Tap the Settings app and look for the Personal Hotspot menu beneath Cellular. If it's there, you likely have the feature.

After Personal Hotspot is enabled on your data plan, turn it on:

If you don't have Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or both enabled when you turn on Personal Hotspot, you're prompted to turn them on or only use USB.

With Instant Hotspot, the Personal Hotspot on your iPhone (or cellular iPad) shares online access to any Mac, iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch without entering the password.

First, verify that the iOS device you want to use as the hotspot is signed in to iCloud with the same Apple ID as the Mac or iOS device you want to provide internet access to. Each device will also need to have Bluetooth and Wi-Fi turned on.

Here's how it works:

Connecting other devices to your Personal Hotspot using Wi-Fi is easy. Tell the people who want to connect to turn on Wi-Fi on their devices and look for the name of your phone (as shown on the Personal Hotspot screen). They should select that network and enter the password shown on the Personal Hotspot screen on the iPhone.

When other devices are connected to your iPhone hotspot, a blue bar appears at the top of the screen and on the lock screen. In iOS 7 and up, the blue bar shows a number next to a lock or an interlocking loops icon that indicates how many devices are connected to the phone.

Want the name of your Personal Hotspot to be something of than "[yourname]'s iPhone?" You need to change the name of your iPhone, which is pretty easy. Find out how in How to Change the Name of Your iPhone.

Personal Hotspot uses data from your iPhone data plan, which offers a limited amount of data. Your monthly data allowance can be used up quickly when streaming video or doing other bandwidth-intensive tasks. 

All data used by devices connected to your iPhone counts against your data plan, so be careful if your data plan is small. Learn how to check your data usage so you don't accidentally go over your limit.

While not common, it's possible for the Personal Hotspot menu to disappear from the iPhone. Find out what causes this and how to fix a missing iPhone Personal Hotspot on iPhone & iOS.