Friday, August 15, 2014

How to set up Wifi Tethering on a FreedomPop Evo Design 4G Phone

I've discussed FreedomPop and their services in past blog posts.  I still recommend them although you have to be careful in dealing with them.  My past blog posts give some warnings. 

I've had a FreedomPop Evo Design 4G Phone for several months now, and it is pretty much useless for voice calls.  I don't text much, but I have found that the phone gets my emails (it uses the Sprint network) well.  FreedomPop initially advertised that the phone would allow wifi tethering, but once I got the phone, they changed their policy stating that wifi tethering was not available.  I bought the phone for $100 and was a beta user.  Because of the problems with voice calling and the short battery life (the battery lasts less than 24 hours with minimal use); I hardly ever use the phone. 

Just today, however, I ran across the item below in a forum.  I tried it, and it works great!  I now can use my FreedomPop Evo Design 4G Phone as a wifi hotspot.  I get 500Mb of 3G/4G data free per month, and I can use that data when traveling, on any other device (laptop, iPad, etc) that needs a wifi or internet connection. 

Thanks, Adolfo and the guy who posted these instructions initially:

How to set up Wifi Tethering
Post by asdfasdf on Mon Nov 04, 2013 6:04 pm

Per Adolfo on the FP Facebook page. Edited from comments below too.

1) Open the "WiFi Tether" app that came stock.
2) Tap the menu key, select "Settings"
3) On the settings screen, change "Change Setup-Method" to "Netd (master)"
4) Uncheck "WiFi-driver reload 2"
5) Check "WiFi-driver reload"
6) Scroll down and select Change LAN, select "172.20.21.0/24"
7) For security, change the SSID, enable WiFi-Encryption, and set the passphrase. 

Though not all of these steps may be necessary, they should make it work for anyone.
Good luck!



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