Internet sharing with an Android phone

Wow - almost a year since the last post here. Let's make up for that with a recommendation for a seriously useful piece of software.

I'm an information junkie. Even though I knew I wasn't likely to have any earthshattering info come in that wouldn't come by mibile phone, I still had to keep checking. However, how do you do that when you're away from your normal internet connection.

Enter :
Laptop +
Android phone +
EasyTether Lite

The Easytether software comes in two parts. One is an app for the mobile, the other is a driver for the laptop. It's available from the Android Market and the link above. The free version is a little crippled, although you won't notice that if you don't use what it limits. The limits (https, games and messenger apps are blocked) are listed in the FAQ and are removed in the $10/£6 paid version (not tested)

How's it work ?

After the software is in, connect your phone like you would to sync or charge it. Easytether (if set to auto) will detect it and activate the internet connection. Job done. Simple as that. It really is as seamless as just plugging it in. The only tweaking to do on the phone is to enable USB debugging, which is how the data goes from internet -> phone -> laptop. No need to root the phone to enable superuser access.

The end result is that you're using the phone as a 3g dongle.

Taking it a step further, you can then use Internet Connection Sharing via the Windows laptop to get other machines hooking up to the net. My current Acer laptop runs Windows 7 and we got good results with an ad-hoc WiFi network. Well, after a little tweaking of course to ensure an old Dell WinXP laptop could see it (the Dell laptop was limited to WEP encryption).

So that's :
Easytether + Win7 laptop = seamless internet access
Win7 + adhoc wifi + ICS = internet access to several laptops

It just worked. No hassle (see below) and it was a lot more efficient than a friend's 3g dongle that was trying to connect via Virginmedia. Latency was as good as my 10Mbit cable internet back home and I was seeing download speeds of around 2.5-3.5Mbits/s when a bit of rogue iTunes downloading was going on ...

I'd fully recommend this app and I'm heavily considering actually paying for it. Quality devs need cash to keep them going.

Hardware in use :
Acer Aspire 7540 Win7 laptop
Sony Ericsson X10i Mini Android phone at 2.1 update 1
Apple Airport Express mk1 (802.11b/g version)

What issues did we see ? All of these are either Windows issues or Apple issues.

Sharing via Airport Express - nogo. Didn't want to happen. Suspect this is a Working As Intended, as while the Airport Express is capable of routing an internet connection that comes in via its Ethernet port, it is not intended to share internet coming in from its wifi.

ICS vs Airplay. This is a curious one ... When Win7 Internet Connection Sharing was enabled, I could not use iTunes remote speakers, iTunes would not allow selection of the Airplay speakers. Looks like a critical clash between ICS and the Apple Airplay protocol. When ICS was disabled, I could connect to Airplay again. I could also see the net while streaming to Airplay, I just couldn't share the connection.

Overuse of internet :-) Lol - this is a sign of the app working maybe a bit too well. I didn't use all of my monthly allocation, I still have about 40MB left ...

Reconfiguring Win7 ad-hoc wifi networks. Seems like these are a "Set up once, step back, leave well alone" thing. The only reconfiguration options I could see were "Create New" or "Delete old".

Closing out - really impressed with this app. It just sits in the background after waiting to do its thing it performs with silent efficiency.