If you have a giffgaff gigabag, you can use the wi-fi hotspot feature on your phone to tether your other devices to the internet. This will allow you to access mobile internet from devices such as a tablet, PC or laptop.
One of the main benefits of mobile technology is ubiquitous connectivity. Whether you’re in a pub, on the train, in a car or in the office, you can always pick up your mobile phone to access the internet. By tethering, you can extend the mobile internet connection from your smartphone onto other devices.
With tethering enabled, you’ll be able to access mobile internet on all of your devices. It’s a great way to get connected whilst you’re on-the-go: you can use your laptop to work on the train and you can use your tablet to watch online videos even when away from home. You can also tether when you want to download new applications, games, music files or photos.
To tether, you’ll need a reasonably new smartphone and a compatible tariff.
If you’re a giffgaff member, you can only tether on a supported tariff. For most people, the best tariff to tether on will be giffgaff gigabags. These start from £5/month for 500MB of internet which can be tethered. Gigabags are also available with 1GB and 3GB of data.
You can also tether on giffgaff goodybags that do not feature unlimited data. The £10 Goodybag is one example: it comes with 1GB of internet which can be tethered. You can also tether on Pay As You Go (i.e. without a goodybag or a gigabag on your account). It costs 20p/day for up to 20MB. See the giffgaff price guide for the latest up-to-date information.
Tethering is not permitted on goodybags that include unlimited internet.
There are three ways to share your mobile internet connection with another device:
To summarise all of the connection methods:
Connection Method |
Devices Supported |
Max Number of |
Speed |
Battery Consumption |
Portable Wi-Fi Hotspot |
Any device that supports wi-fi (e.g. laptop, tablet, MP3 player, e-book reader and games console) |
5-10 devices at one time |
High |
High |
Bluetooth |
Some Bluetooth-enabled devices |
1 device |
Low |
Low |
USB Cable |
A laptop with relevant software installed |
1 device |
High |
N/A, USB cable will charge phone whilst tethering |
The easiest and fastest way to tether is via a portable wi-fi hotspot. Because it’s easy to set up, is fast and supports a large number of devices, it’s the most commonly used method for tethering. In this article, we’ll focus on this tethering over a wi-fi hotspot. We’ll also discuss tethering via Bluetooth and USB.
If you have an iPhone, you'll need to jailbreak it before you can tether on giffgaff. See this video for instructions on jailbreaking your iPhone.
Once you've jailbroken your iPhone, the wi-fi hotspot feature can be enabled as follows:
If you prefer to tether via USB or Bluetooth, you can find these settings in the Settings > General > Network menu. To tether via USB, you’ll need a computer with iTunes installed (version 8.2 or later). Your computer will also need to be running a recent version of Windows or Mac OS. Supported versions are Windows XP (SP2 and later), Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Mac OS X (version 10.5.7 and later).
If you’ve got a device with Android 2.2 or later, you can share its mobile internet connection with up to 10 other devices.
How to set up and secure a wi-fi hotspot on Android.
If you prefer tethering over Bluetooth or USB, the options should appear on the same menu (Settings > Wireless & Networks > More settings > Tethering & portable hotspot). The option for USB tethering only appears when your phone is plugged in to a computer. USB tethering will only work if you have a recent version of Windows or Linux: it’s not compatible with Macs.
You’ll need to be running Windows Phone 7.5 or later in order to tether. Using the “wi-fi hotspot” feature on a Windows Phone, you can share the internet with up to 5 other devices.
USB tethering and Bluetooth tethering are not officially supported on Windows Phone devices.
If you have a BlackBerry 10 device, you can use the portable wi-fi hotspot to tether up to 8 devices at a time.
If you’re tethering over a portable wi-fi hotspot, it’s strongly recommended that you use password protect your hotspot. This will stop other people from connecting to your network and using your data allowance. It also makes your information more secure: data that’s transmitted on an encrypted hotspot will not be visible to other people. With most smartphones, there’s an option to add WPA2 encryption when you set up the hotspot.
Finally, when tethering, it’s worth thinking about data consumption. If you’re connecting your laptop to mobile internet via tethering, data consumption can be higher. Common culprits include automatic software updates, P2P applications and cloud storage services (e.g. Dropbox). Disabling these applications before you tether can make your download allowance go further.
The tethering functionality on a giffgaff gigabag plan allows you to connect a variety of devices to the internet whilst you’re on-the-go. This includes tablets, laptops, e-book readers, MP3 players and games consoles. The devices don’t need to support 3G and you don’t need a new data plan: you simply need to tether through a smartphone and a supported tariff.
What devices do you use when you’re on-the-go? Do you use your tablet when you’re away from home? Have you tried tethering on a giffgaff gigabag? We’d love to hear your thoughts… please drop us a comment below and let us know what you think!
Ken Lo writes about mobile technology and the mobile industry at Ken's Tech Tips.
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