If you have a mobile broadband USB dongle from a provider such as O2 then you might find it useful to share that internet connection with other nearby devices such as laptops and mobile phones. The process for setting this up has been greatly simplified in Windows 8.1, but does require some navigating through the unfamiliar pathways of the metro interface to reach. Microsoft's official guide, Mobile broadband from start to finish, has everything you need to know:
Note that the mobile broadband sharing setting is not sticky. If your laptop sleeps then you will need to redo these steps to initiate the sharing again.
- Swipe in from the right edge of the screen, tap Settings, then tap Change PC settings. (If you're using a mouse, point to the top-right corner of the screen, move the mouse pointer down, click Settings, then click Change PC settings.)
- Tap or click Network, then tap or click your mobile broadband connection.
- Tap or click the Share this connection slider to turn it on.
- If you want to change the network name or password of the shared connection, tap or click Edit.
I wouldn't normally create a blog just to link to a Microsoft page, but at the time I needed it my Google-fu was lacking. I think because it's a new feature in Windows 8.1 it is not widely known, so I proffer this as my assistance in advertising it.
I have been using Windows Internet Connection Sharing through a wired network since Windows 2000, so I thought it wouldn't be too hard, but the additional requirement of setting up a wifi hotspot led me to various Windows 8-oriented guides. I rigorously followed the comprehensive 4sysops guide How to share Wi-Fi in Windows 8 with Internet connection sharing (ICS), but although it created the hotspot fine, and I was able to connect to that hotspot from other devices, none of those devices could then go on to access the internet. I don't know if there was some crucial configuration element that was missing, but when I found the simpler GUI way of setting this up in Windows 8.1, and found the new method actually worked, I stopped investigating.