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I recently started using my android phone as USB hotspot to connect my desktop PC to the internet. It's great. Cable connection is way better than over wifi dongle in my pc which was unstable. And the phone is charging at the same time.
This doesn’t solve OPs problem, but I wonder if you could build a dongle yourself with a RPI and hardware for interacting with the SIM card. Amazon has a few USB-A dongles available; no USB-C though.
The challenging part is connecting to the cellular network, and you'd still need a separate module for that. In the end you'd end up with what is essentially a dongle connected to the RPI[0], so you don't really gain anything from it.
I’ve been looking for the same to no avail. I’d buy one for my MacBook in an instant but the only things available in Germany are bulky hotspot devices with built-in batteries for 300-700€.
I'm almost sure this is the main reason for these dongles to not really have a market. A phone already provides the same functionality, the battery drain on a laptop would be pretty similar (since the modem on a phone is very well optimised) so extra power through a charger/external battery would be needed anyway if the main issue is draining the phone's battery, it'd just shift to draining the computer's battery.
You don't need to use WiFi to share an internet connection - it should be possible to tether your phone via cable and you can definitely share the connection via Bluetooth too. If your operating system vendor doesn't support this, please send them a support email inquiring as to why.
> via Bluetooth too Wouldn't recommend, bluetooth has the disadvantage of being very slow.
after seeing the abysmal bandwidth i understood why every headphone becomes garbage when you start using the microphone channel.
there's no hope for BT and it must go on favor of anything else from this century.
You don't need to use WiFi to share an internet connection - it should be possible to tether your phone via cable and you can definitely share the connection via Bluetooth too. If your operating system vendor doesn't support this, please send them a support email inquiring as to why.
> via Bluetooth too Wouldn't recommend, bluetooth has the disadvantage of being very slow.
GSM dongles simply aren't that popular anymore. Wifi access is near-universal, so the average consumer will pretty much never be without internet access - and their phone is a pretty suitable backup hotspot. The people who do need GSM-based internet - like surveyors or door-to-door people - are probably better served by tablets anyways, and definitely don't want to deal with a USB dongle. If they have to, they'll jus…
This one. When your phone can almost always act as a hotspot, you don't need a separate one.
And for tourists it's much easier to get a 5G/WiFi hotspot at the airport for the duration of the trip.
> The people who do need GSM-based internet - like surveyors or door-to-door people - are probably better served by tablets anyways, and definitely don't want to deal with a USB dongle. If they have to, they'll just get a laptop with a M.2 GSM card.
Laptops in the space commonly have either built-in WWAN or a BTO option. I'm pretty sure you can get at least 4G on every Toughbook.