Cell phone networking question

wa8yxm wrote:
YOu check the CONNECT AUTOMATICALLY box when you select the network, then your laptops et-al will auto connect to WHICHEVER hot spot is active.

Laptops yes, TV and printer not so much. They only looked for the last device they connected to. By changing the SSID on all our hotspot devices I thing our problem is solved.

YOu check the CONNECT AUTOMATICALLY box when you select the network, then your laptops et-al will auto connect to WHICHEVER hot spot is active.

GordonThree wrote:
Printers typically don't save a list of wifi networks.

Same thing with Chromecast and Roku devices.

Assign each hotspot the same SSID and password. Then you only program it once.

Thanks everyone for the posts. I am going to try using the same SSID name with all our devices. This seems like the best fix fix the question I asked.

Happy New Year all!

If you buy a MiFi device you will solve this problem and you will be able to use that same shared data with all devices and keep your phones available to talk on (what a concept....talk on your phone!). It's only $10/month for the MiFi plus the cost which is usually around $100.

Printers typically don't save a list of wifi networks.

Same thing with Chromecast and Roku devices.

Assign each hotspot the same SSID and password. Then you only program it once.

K Charles wrote:
Our laptops and tablets connect to whatever hotspot is the closest that it knows the password to.

This.

Go to the wifi settings of the device and open it. Find your hotspot in the list and set it to connect automatically. Exactly how you do this will vary with device.

Be sure your hotspot is on before you turn on the printer.

Make sure you have the security key entered and saved on each device.

jcpainter wrote:


Yes, you could purchase any router that has a good "WIFI as WAN" feature and have it use the WiFi of whichever phone's hotspot you are wanting to use. Then just connect all of your printers, laptops, etc. to the router.

When you want to use the data allotment on a different phone, just have the router connect to that phone's hotspot.

I have done this.

I was hoping for a device that would look for approved sources and automatically connect (Like my laptop does now) to provide a home network. With so many people using phones for connectivity now, if this doesn't exist, it should. Might be a money maker to some tech savvy person.

That is true for for our laptops. Doesn't seem to be true for our printer or TV.

cpd520 wrote:
We currently are on the Verizon network with 4 devises, each with 15g of shared bandwidth. currently we have to connect devices (laptops, printer...) each time, to the hotspot currently turned on.

Do they make a router or other device that will search for approved hotspots and automatically connect to provide a home network for our laptops and printer?

hope the question makes sense.

Yes, you could purchase any router that has a good "WIFI as WAN" feature and have it use the WiFi of whichever phone's hotspot you are wanting to use. Then just connect all of your printers, laptops, etc. to the router.

When you want to use the data allotment on a different phone, just have the router connect to that phone's hotspot.

You will want to put the "phone of choice" very close to the router to get the least amount of speed loss.

Give the hotspot the same name and password on each of the four phones.