Personal hotspot connection drops

The connection between the laptop and the phone drops often - it's very annoying.

Laptop -- Macbook Pro M1 Max - Sonoma 14.1.1

Phone -- iPhone SE 17.5.1

This didn't happen previously when I had an Android SAGA phone.

Once the connection is dropped, it does not "find" it again, I have to go into "Personal Hotspot", toggle "Allow Others to Join" off, then on again... this causes the phone hotspot to reappear so I can reconnect.

Obviously this is very annoying.

Is there some setting I can change to make it retain the connection?

Is there an option to connect through a cable so that the connection is maintained?