This phone is broken (broken screen) and was given to me, so I figured I’d use it as a WiFi extender, but I guess I can’t.

  • @forrgott@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    4415 days ago

    Well, technically that’s not a “hotspot”. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it’s a Wi-Fi extender.

    • m-p{3}
      link
      fedilink
      English
      1715 days ago

      And a poor Wi-Fi extender as well, since you halve your network bandwidth by using an extender with a single radio chip.

      • TurboWafflz
        link
        fedilink
        English
        815 days ago

        I’ve only seen that option on phones with two radios, it uses the 2.4GHz radio for one connection and the 5GHz radio for the other

        • @LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works
          cake
          link
          fedilink
          English
          515 days ago

          I am not entirely sure what kind of radio fuckery happens, but my phone (Oneplus 6 with LineageOS) can be connected to a 5 Ghz wifi network and have a 5 GHz hotspot open at the same time.

          I am assuming the wifi chip has two (or more) somewhat independent frontends, since my home wifi and the phone hotspot are on two different 5 GHz frequencies.

        • @forrgott@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          415 days ago

          That’s kinda required. I doubt one antenna can simultaneously send and receive.

          Anyway, there’s still only one controller, so your bandwidth is still halved.

          • lurch (he/him)
            link
            fedilink
            English
            315 days ago

            An antenna can absolutely send and receive at the same time. It’s called duplex .

            • @forrgott@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              4
              edit-2
              15 days ago

              Oh, I should clarify; this is more than send and receive - there’s some amount of network routing involved with being a Wi-Fi extender or relay or whatever.

              What I probably meant to say is one antenna cannot send/receive simultaneously on more than one network.

              But, yes, duh, thank you for calling me out on that one!

          • @LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works
            cake
            link
            fedilink
            English
            115 days ago

            I am not sure if the bandwidth is really limited by the controller, or by the modulation / signal-to-noise ratios in practical scenarios.

    • @kernelle@0d.gs
      link
      fedilink
      English
      415 days ago

      I’ll have to disagree on that one, WiFi extenders extend an existing network, keeping the same network and DHCP is done by the original access point.

      A hotspot creates a new network, and DHCP is handled by the hotspot, not the network on the WAN side.