How to share internet connection on PC with iphone

This is a tutorial on how to share the internet connection available on your ethernet port(LAN cable) or dial-up connection with your iphone, if you have a wireless network adapter in your PC/Laptop. This will be helpful for the people who do not have wireless modems in their home, but have other means of connecting to the internet like broadband, dial-up etc. However, the PC need to have wireless adapter which support 802.11 adhoc networking protocol. Most of today's network adapters support this. You can buy a USB based wireless network adapter which are widely available. This tutorial can also be used just to setup an adhoc network between a PC and the iphone. Enough of marketing, lets get started...


I am assuming that you are using windows XP or Vista. I am assuming that your ethernet is already configured properly for accessing internet. We first need to make your PC/laptop capable of talking to the iphone and viceversa. Follow the below steps to setup an adhoc network between the PC and the iphone.

1. Go to control panel -> network connections.
2. Right click on "Wireless network connection" and choose properties
3. Choose "Wireless Networks" tab.
4. Click the "Add" button, in "Preferred networks" section.
5. Give "iphone-net" as SSID (you can choose any other name)
6. Select "Open" for "network authentication"
7. Select "Disabled" for "data encryption"
8. Tick the checkbox saying "This is a computer-to-computer(ad hoc) network..."
9. You need not change anything else in the other two tabs.
10. Save your settings, by pressing OK in all the places.

If everything goes fine, in your iphone, you will be able to see "iphone-net" as one of the available wi-fi networks when you turn on the wi-fi in the iphone. Do not connect to it yet. The procedure ahead is very simple if you have DHCP available on your ethernet. i.e if you automatically get an IP when you connect the LAN cable. Most of the ADSL broadband modems have this functionality. They assign an IP to the PC, when the LAN cable is connected. If you are not a geek you mostly would use this feature to get an IP for your PC.


For now, let us assume that you have DHCP available on your ethernet, where you have internet connection. (If you do not have DHCP, you should follow some extra steps that I mentioned at the end of this tutorial). Follow the steps to create a network bridge.

1. You will have at-least have two entries in your network connections.
2. One will be of the ethernet, and another will be of the wireless network.
3. Select the two connections (by doing ctrl+left click).
4. While both the connections are selected, right click and select "bridge connections"
5. It will take a little while to bridge connections.
6. You will get one more entry in network connections with name "Network Bridge"

You are almost ready to go. Do your routine exercise whichever you follow to be able to access the internet on your PC. For e.g starting your ADSL modem, and/or connecting the LAN cable etc. Once you are able to access internet on your PC, do the following on your iphone.

1. Turn on the wifi
2. Select iphone-net that will be shown in the available networks.
3. Click the small blue round arrow on the right
4. It will give more details about the connection.
5. You should see the IP that is in the same range as that of your PC.
6. Open the safari browser, and open some website. It should work.

 Enjoy!!


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