Page 747 - Windows 10 May 2019 Update The Missing Manual: The Book That Should Have Been in the Box

than just connecting to it. You also have to sign into it before you can send

so much as a single email message.

To do that, open your browser. You see the “Enter payment information”
screen either immediately or as soon as you try to open a web page of your
choice. (Even at free hotspots, you might have to click OK on a welcome

page to initiate the connection.)

Supply your credit card information or (if you have a membership to this
Wi-Fi chain, like Boingo or T-Mobile) your name and password. Click

Submit or Proceed, try not to contemplate how this $8 per hour is pure
profit for somebody, and enjoy your surfing.

The Mobile Hotspot

Here’s a wild concept that may take your brain a moment to comprehend.
The Mobile Hotspot feature (sometimes called Internet Sharing, or

tethering) lets one computer broadcast its internet connection to any other
nearby machines over Wi-Fi. The first computer can be online over an

Ethernet wire, using a cellular connection, or even connected to Wi-Fi
itself.

Let’s take these scenarios one at a time.

Sharing a Cellular Connection

Suppose your Windows 10 tablet or laptop has a cellular modem inside. It
can provide its cellular internet signal to nearby computers—laptops, for
example. The nice part is that they can therefore get online almost

anywhere there’s cell coverage. The less-nice part is that the connection
isn’t always blazing fast, and you have to pay your cell company for the

privilege. (It’s usually $20 or $30 on top of your regular monthly phone
plan; for that, you’re allowed to send and receive, say, 2 gigabytes of data
each month. If you go over the limit, you pay overage fees. Good luck with

that.)