Iphone tethinging as modem to router.

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matt_mu

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Jun 29, 2010
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I'm wondering if i use my iphone with usb tethering and get a female usb to male Ethernet adapter, plug my iPhone usb cable into my iphone and the other end into the usb adapter and plug it into the internet ethernet port on my router i could the my iPhone as a modem and power my routers internet?
 
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I thought I would comment on this, even if it's a little dated.

I recently had the same issue, trying to set up a network at the cottage using my cell phone data plan/4g network as my WAN and then distribute that connection to multiple computers.

Yes, I went the route of hooking it up (tethered) to a computer and then sharing that connection via Windows 7 ICS using two NICs and dumping the shared NIC's feed into a hub via a crossover cable.

It worked fine, but the the problem is, you can't file share with the machine running ICS....along with numerous other issues that are presented with Windows ICS, notwithstanding DNS.

Then I decided to take a chance on this piece of gear: http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=asus+portable+wireless+access+point&hl=en&prmd=imvns&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&biw=1264&bih=814&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=7130320350963962684&sa=X&ei=8wnRTvvYHqPZ0QH80r33Dw&ved=0CGMQ8wIwAA

It works perfectly and is the perfect solution for those who want to create a WAN and share an internet connection to multiple computers using their smart phone or iphone as a modem.

You create a wireless hotspot on your smartphone or iphone, set the router to the "Gateway" option which then sends the WAN feed to it's ethernet port. Connect the ethernet port to a hub....and you're off to the races. I've been using this for weeks now with no problems.

I get 14 megs down and about 4 megs up with the 4g connection - it's faster than my cable service in the city.

Regards,

The Todd Man
 
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I have iPhone with jailbroken tethering capabilities, and a linksys router with DD-WRT on it, When you said "Create a wireless hotspot on your smart phone, and set router to gateway option." Was you implying that you should make a personal wifi hotspot with your iPhone & using that Asus Wireless Access Point first, and then put a router into gateway mode to share via cat-5 or AP? How do you set a linksys router running DD-WRT to gateway mode?

I'm trying to tether my iphone using any of the cydia tethering apps, and using my iphone as a modem to connect to a router. I would just use my iPhone, but I'm trying to get my PS3 video game console to have a open NAT Type of 1 or 2, I can't get it to have a open NAT type just using the cydia apps for some reason. It always comes up NAT type 3(or strict). So I'm thinking I have to make the iphone a modem and then connect it to a router some how thats in gateway mode and then connect it to PS3 and get a NAT Type 1 or 2, if the router is setup right and I have the right equipment. Do I need to buy a ASUS or D-Link WAP device first or can I do it with just a router and my iphone and a pc? if so how do I do this? thanks in advance.
 
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I was able to accomplish this finally, after much troubleshooting...
1. Enable Personal Hotspot on iPhone (just stating the obvious).
2. Acquire a Wi-Fi to Ethernet bridge or range extender with an Ethernet port; I used the Netgear WNCE2001 http://www.netgear.com/home/products/connected-entertainment/gaming-home-theater/WNCE2001.aspx
3. Connect a computer via ethernet cable to the wireless bridge for configuration. No matter what brand you choose, essentially you will need to locate the Wi-Fi network that your iPhone is broadcasting and connect to
it. You can leave the IP settings to automatic/DHCP because as far as I know, there is no way to specify custom IP settings that you want your iPhone to utilize for its wireless clients.
4. Once the bridge is configured, connect the ethernet cable to the router that you would like to use (I'm using an AirPort Express).
5. I forgot to mention that you may want to configure the router before connecting it to the bridge first, but essentially you will need to specify some manual IP settings for the WLAN/LAN side clients. This is because the router will see your WAN connection through the bridge, and through the iPhone's data connection. In other words, your WAN connection will get an iPhone-assigned IP of probably 172.20.10.2 or something within that subnet. To avoid a subnet conflict with your client devices, you will need the router to dish out IP addresses within a different subnet (say 10.0.1.0, for example). Whether or not you have to manually set this up depends on the brand of router that you are using. With the AirPort, it's fairly straightforward as long as you tell the device to create a new network and then when connecting apple client devices, don't select the iPhone's personal hotspot because then you bypass the router and will not be able to see other clients (which means you cannot airplay or share files, etc.).

I use the above setup in a remote outbuilding that is constructed of steel. Even though there is a moderately strong LTE frequency signal outside, I have a five band signal booster installed using external directional antenna. It brings the two-way boosted signal (data and voice) into the building where it connects to a repeater antenna. My iPhone connects to that to obtain the LTE connection for data. Then a few feet away is the Netgear bridge, which is connected to the AirPort via Ethernet cable. The AirPort sees the iPhone personal hotspot (172.20.10.2) as its WAN connection -- it doesn't care that it's not a cable modem, DSL modem, etc.
When you consider that continuity uses Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, plus add the signal booster that I'm using, and there is no doubt a lot of RF activity within the 700/800 MHz and 2.4/5 GHz spectrums. Nevertheless, this is advantageous to me because my iPhone still has an unlimited data plan. And with a -60 dBm Signal, my broadband speeds are usually 7-14 Mbps down.
Hope this helps -- took me a while to figure it out but using the bridge is a simpler solution that I originally overlooked. I was making it really too complicated.
 
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This can also be done even easier if you have tomato or DD-WRT running as your firmware as opposed to your stock firmware. All you have to do for this is disable the DHCP server on the router (most likely under LAN settings). Then you would go into your wireless settings and change the mode to client-bridge. This will make the router use a wireless signal as it's WAN instead of the WAN port. You can also (if you need the extra port) make it so that the WAN port acts like a LAN port. As far as getting the firmware on your router, that's something you'll have to look up yourselves on their respective sites. This lets you avoid getting an ethernet bridge as you are turning your router into exactly that.
 
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Its simpler than ever and works like a charm!

I have a iPhone 5c iOS 8.3 and a D-Link DWR-116 "4G modem router".

Set up the router as a bridge, make your iPhone connect to your ISP and share the connection through USB (disable wifi and bluetooth), connect your iPhone cable to the USB-modem-port on the router, wait for dialog and select "I trust this computer". Now you can connect your other devices by ethernet-cable or wifi bridged through the router to your modem (iPhone).


Configure the D-Link router in Setup/Manual Internet Connection Setup as follows:

INTERNET CONNECTION TYPE
My Internet Connection is: 4G LTE / 3G
Failover Internet Type is: Disable (n/a)

4G LTE / 3G INTERNET CONNECTION TYPE
Diall-Up Profile: Auto-Detection
Pin Code: I put mine there, but its probably not needed
Reconnection Mode: Auto
...and so on, down to the last line..
Bridge ethernet ports: Enable

Click "Save settings", wait for a router restart, Click "I trust this computer" on your iPhone, and .. Viola!

It may depend on your ISP and what kind of service you have, but if it is a modern and straightforward 3G or 4G it should work.

Regards Alfred
 
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Do you have any problems with getting disconnected? I had this setup at first but it would drop Internet connection after a couple of hours. I had to reboot the phone. I'm currently using the wifi tether option and it work great but my preferred way would be usb tether.
 
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matt_mu,

I have the same question. My iPhone is not jailbroken, but I have some free 4g hotspot that can be used, and the speeds provided are faster than local ISP companies. My current router is not able to be customized with open-wrt but I want to tether my iphone directly to the router. I do not want to use the wifi hotspot as the wifi is very congested where I live and as far as I know I do not get to choose which channel I want the wifi to be broadcasted from. Not to mention I get about a 30% loss of speeds and slightly higher pings over wifi. I've found USB tethering to be way more efficient than using the wifi hotspot.

I'm purchasing a female USB to male ethernet adapter simply to try it. I don't think it will work, as the router may need the necessary settings or software to know what is going on. Worst case scenario is that I'm out $6.00. It arrives today, so I'll update later tonight or tomorrow on my findings.

http://www.amazon.com/Insten%C2%AE-Female-Ethernet-Router-Adapter/dp/B00AF1PHZC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1430916052&sr=8-1&keywords=female+usb+male+ethernet

I've been able to tether to my laptop on Windows 8.1 where I can bridge the iPhone connection with my ethernet port which provides internet to my router. I've had success on Windows 10, but it's been quite buggy. However, I think it would be simpler to only have to plug the iPhone into the router.

Instructions for bridging iPhone USB and ethernet connections are as follows:

1. Connect your phone to your windows pc, enable USB hotspot tethering on the iPhone.
2. In the bottom right corner of the screen, right click the internet connection icon. Select "Open Network and Sharing Center".
3. When the "Network and Sharing Center" opens, click "Change Adapter Settings" located on the upper right hand side.
4. From there, find your iPhone connection and ethernet connection. Ctrl click them to highlight both of the icons. When both are selected, right click, then select "Bridge Connections."
5. If this doesn't work for you or you want to delete the bridged connections, simply right click the bridge icon that popped up (it looks like a router/modem), and select "delete bridge."

Apparently a Raspberry Pi can do a method similar to this one, basically bridging the USB and ethernet ports together. There are guides online, but I have not confirmed that they work. I have a Raspberry Pi lying around that I'll test it with if the female USB to male ethernet adapter doesn't work. Just a guess here, but I'm assuming a Raspberry Pi uses a lot less electricity than a full blown Windows PC.

One last thing: A customizable router with a usb port should be able to do what we want. For me, this is a last resort option because I'm a cheapass and I like my current router.

EDIT:
Received the female USB to male ethernet adapter today, it didn't work. Can anyone explain why this is? Could it work with an open-wrt capable router without a USB port?

Edit 2: I've contacted the company that made the router I'm using, they say it depends on how the Iphone data transmission rules are. I'm not sure what this means.
Upon contacting Apple customer service, they had no idea what the iPhone data transmission rules were. They wanted me to specify further, but I don't fully understand what I'm asking in the first place.

I'll ask the company who made the router for more info then contact my cellular service provider to ask about the data transmission rules, but I have a feeling they won't know what I'm talking about.

I'm probably just going to try the Raspberry Pi method after I dig just a little bit deeper.
 
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You are a legend! I bought the exact same rooter as yours for £34.99 on eBay and it works like a charm with my iPhone 5s. :bounce:
The unpleasant part is that my contract with "3 Mobile" will expire in 2 months so no more unlimited tethering! :fou:
But if anyone finds a way around it then it would be nice if you share it! 😀
Thank you very much! :wahoo:
 
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No mate sorry but this doesn't overcome your tethering limit unless maybe you find a third party program through Cydia maybe which it will hide your tethering but you still need to watch out how much you're dowloading cause they'll find out otherwise.. Ps I still have unlimited tethering until 14th of Frbruary 2016 then I must find a way around it or either get broadband at home.. ^^
 
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I was curious if this could be expanded to take use of the new "dual wan load balancing" or "dual wan for backup access capabilities" that rather new routers are marketing these days. Almost all of the routers I've seen have a very short list of secondary (phones / portable cellular hotspot devices) that they are compatible with.

Specifically I haven't seen any device that out of the box has this feature that uses the Iphone to usb hotspot feature.
 
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I have AT&T with hotspot and data plan. As long as you can setup any router with a Ethernet cable to access internet, you can use the computers USB port for the connection, bridge the wth created by iTunes and your Ethernet port for the computer, plug the cable into router, then connect to the wifi network using your wifi card on the same machine. Now you get file sharing and everything. Worked for me using a century link DSL c110z and my iPhone hotspot.
Epic! Now on the farm I have a full wifi network with the elite AT&T hotspot speeds, no throttling.
 
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In the process of working this configuration, if you use a different router that is still 4G capable and with a bridge will that still work?

 
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