Using computer’s internet on Windows Phone–the story :)

Wouldn’t it be cool if you could use your computer’s internet connection when your smartphone is connected with your laptop via a USB cable? I have always wanted to do this but none of the smartphones offer this functionality (at least by default). Until of course I got a Windows Phone.

I have been using LG Quantum (one of the first generation Windows Phones) as my daily driver for about six months now. One day when the phone was connected with my laptop and I was browsing the internet (on the laptop) I got a message on the WhatsApp app on my phone. So I opened the app and started chatting with the person who had sent the message. After some time I unplugged the device and carried it around. So I started up Whatsapp and tried messaging the person. But I couldn’t! This was really strange so I checked my connections status and was surprised to find out that both Wifi and cellular data connection was off. And I couldn’t remember turning the Wifi and GPRS to off state. And then it hit me! Seems like Whatsapp was using my laptop internet connection to send and receive messages!

I couldn’t believe that this was happening, as being able to use your computer / laptop internet on your smartphone while it is connected to a computer is one of the most coveted features (at least by geeks!) on a smartphone. And weird still if this is true then why the hell Microsoft has not advertised this feature when giving out ads for the Windows Phone devices.

So I connected the phone to the laptop again and then started using all the apps on the phone while it was connected to the laptop. And everything worked including built in apps such as Internet Explorer, email and So there you have it, if you want to use your computer internet on your phone out of the box without any hacking or jailbreaking then get yourself a Windows Phone.

P.S. I wrote this as a background story to tell how I found this feature but if you want to check the steps on how to do this then read my separate post here.

Update: This functionality works when your Windows Phone has at least Windows Phone 7.5 on you phone and Zune client installed and running on your PC.

Cheers

Robin

How to use your laptop / computer’s connection on your Windows Phone?

Simply, there is no lengthy “how to” on this one. You just need a Windows Phone with version 7.5 or higher and  Zune client installed on your PC.

Just connect your Windows Phone with a USB cable to your computer and wait for Zune client to start up. If it does not start automatically then start it manually and make sure that your device is connected by looking into the top left corner of Zune and ensuring that an image of your phone is present there.

Now turn off all connections on your Windows Phone and you can start using all apps without any problem as the phone will now use your computer’s internet connection! Cool! You can save a lot on data this way when you are near your computer.

There are some caveats though:

- Apps such as Music+Videos, Marketplace and Pictures won’t work because they are syncing with Zune when its connected.

- You need to keep Zune running to use this feature. As soon as you close Zune, the internet stops working.

- You need Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) on your WinPhone to use this feature.

I have written a lengthy post about how I found this feature which you can read here if you want all the details.

And here’s a video showing off this feature:

Cheers

Robin