In some situations we may have to connect to a Wifi network that is not ‘visible’ from our homes.
Especially on holiday, where we are forced to stand at the window to try to get a better signal from a public HotSpot.
How to ‘repeat’ the signal picked up outside, in our house?
We must have a portable computer with Windows 7 (or later) on board, and a portable usb wifi antenna.
The idea is to:
- to connect to the external wifi through this wifi key (which can also be placed on the balcony with a usb extension) and
- create a ‘bridge’, i.e. a virtual fusion of the laptop’s internal network card with the USB stick
Then use the handset’s internal antenna to create a virtual HotSpot (or access point)
In this way, the wifi signal inside the house will be guaranteed by the antenna integrated in the handset and it will be completely sufficient to surf without disconnections.
Furthermore, this procedure allows you to connect multiple devices to our new HotSpot (such as other computers, tablets, mobile phones, etc.) up to a maximum of 64 clients.
Creating a HotSpot is very simple:
Connect via usb wifi key to the public wifi you prefer.
Afterwards:
Open a Prompt of commands with administrator rights (From Start menu > Run > cmd) and write (without quotes):
netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=myhotspot key=12345678
Note that in this example a trivial password has been entered; you can enter a password between 8 and 63 characters in the ‘key’ field.
The name ‘ssid’ can be changed from ‘myhotspot’ to any other name you want.
Once the above parameters have been set, execute the command with send.
Now we must start the HotSpot service, from the same prompt type:
netsh wlan start hostednetwork
and hit the send button to start the wifi retransmission.
At this point you must share the connection coming from the outside (usb stick):
- Go to control panel
- Network Connection and Sharing Centre
- Go to card settings (left)
- Choose the external network card (the one connected to the USB and not the one integrated in the handset)
- Right click, go to properties
- Click on properties again
- Go to the top of the ‘Sharing’ tab
- Click on “Allow other network users to connect to the Internet via the network of this computer”.
So now if you use another device (like a smartphone) to search for new wifi networks, you will find one with the name you have chosen, and you can connect to it.
Similarly, to deactivate the bridge (the HotSpot) give the following command:
netsh wlan stop hostednetwork
If there are problems with the connection, try this:
- Return back to Card Settings
- Select your computer’s internal network card this time
- Right click, go to properties
- Click on properties again
- Go to the top of the ‘Sharing’ tab
- Choose the external tab (see image)
NOTE: every time we turn off the pc, we should re-do the prompt procedure (but in most cases the control panel procedure will not be necessary).