Connection sharing Wi-Fi to Wi-Fi

Question

Level 1

8 points

Connection sharing Wi-Fi to Wi-Fi

When I'm travelling, I often find myself behind a captive portal. This could be in a hotel overseas, or on an airplane, where I'm paying money for a single Wi-Fi connection and do not have cellular access.

With my Android phone, I can connect to the paid WiFi service, log-in to the captive portal, and share the internet connection with any other devices on hand.

Is there any path to doing this on an iPhone, Mac, or iPad? My personal and work MBP's don't appear to support connection sharing Wi-Fi to Wi-Fi. Is there any support in iOS and supported devices for this?

Do apple users use a cable for this? Or a travel router? Or just pay the connection for each device? None of these seem great.

Thanks in advance

iPhone 16

Posted on Mar 9, 2025 3:29 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Mar 9, 2025 11:21 AM in response to EditCursor

An iPhone can either connect to a Wi-Fi portal, or it can host a Wi-Fi network, but not both at the same time. However, I’ve never seen a captive portal that doesn’t support multiple connections for one price when logging in with the same credentials. I was recently in a hotel and had 4 devices connected to the captive portal.

Reply

Answer 2

EditCursor Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 9, 2025 11:40 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

Thanks Lawrence, yes, fair point about hotels, but this isn't the case with airlines.

It looks like I could add a second Wi-Fi adapter to one of the MBPs I carry and with two Wi-Fi adapters could connect to one interface and share from the other. Really surprised Apple doesn't support multiplexing a single Wi-Fi adapter (Windows has supported this since 2011 with "Virtual Wi-Fi"). Not to worry.

Reply

Connection sharing Wi-Fi to Wi-Fi

Similar questions