Yes you can make your iPhone as Modem so you can have multiple devices connected. There is a software available on Apple Store that is “ShareIt” install on iPhone and also install on your PC. Your PC Internet can be transferred through ShareIt on your iPhone, which will act as backup Wi-Fi Modem.
My main internet is down at the moment so I’m writing this with an iPhone connected as a USB modem to Fedora 23 (Linux) computer. Check with the NetworkManager/Gnome team… they might be able to give some pointers?
Other companies are already doing this. You should get on this. It would be especially useful with the MAX routers, for business travellers.
Yeah, why is this not supported yet? Thanks.
Hi all,
Sadly to say that we had KIV this feature due to the priority of the requested features. You are welcome to acknowledge us if this is supported by others product, we will continue to look into this.
Thank you.
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Hi TK,
Thanks for your response. Another issue I see with iPhones is that I usually can’t even see the iPhone 6s Plus’s (or even 5s’s) Personal Hotspot network on my Pepwave MAX OTG to utilize it as WiFi as WAN if I wanted to. Sometimes I can see it but I have never been able to connect to it. One thing I noticed is, when I am able to see it, was that its SSID gets cutoff from “ABC’s iPhone” to just “ABC” so that could be part of the problem. Do you know what the problem is with this and why it doesn’t work? Thanks again.
Just found this thread hunting for a device that supports the same… Only device that seems to support this that isn’t a hack is the WiFiRanger line of mobile routers… So off I go.
I submit another request for iphone tethering.
What models of Android phone will support tethering to the Balance One Core? The youtube video from 3gstore states specific models but doesn’t say which ones.
Since my old iphone won’t work I plan on hopefully finding a used old android phone to work. It seems the least expensive solution to get LTE data BU for my scenario.
Att has a deal for a mobile hotspot for a dollar if you sign a 2 year commitment. If commitments scare you, you can buy one for 200 bucks. That and the data plan is somewhat cheap and it just works straight out of the box. It works great as a last resort.
You could also try a wireless bridge between the iPhone hotspot and the Peplink router. The bridge would plug into a RJ45 WAN port and communicate wirelessly to the carrier/internet.
An old router can be turned into a wifi bridge. So can an old PC or laptop with a wifi and wired network cards.
Apple == Special connectors and APIs. Apple breaks standards to suit their agenda. Take a look at how an Apple TV goes to sleep sometime - you aren’t supposed to steal mac addresses from devices. I just bought a 50 dollar adapter to go from lightning to hdmi, a second lightning to USB cable for my iDevices just to plug them into a headrest monitor. The same solution for android is a single Mini USB to HDMI that sells for around 8 bucks. So, there is obviously a standard developed to support mobile devices attaching to larger hdmi monitors - why did Apple have to “roll their own”? Because they sell the only adapter that can be bought at WalMart. For 50 bucks.
I don’t blame PepLink for letting this one simmer. I am sure companies that support this feature paid for the opportunity. They most likely can put a “made for iPhone” label on the box. That can’t be cheap from a company that charges a fortune for every adapter, cord, and peripheral. But, I still buy their stuff because it is pretty slick
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Or I could just use an old iphone I have laying around…
The old iPhone5 is able to plug in and provide internet via a tethered connection to every PC and Mac I own which has a USB slot - old or new. It would seem sensible that I could do the same to the peplink - especially considering they’re tethering with Android and god knows how many versions of icecream sandwich etc there are.
Old iPhones are great for iPods that you can leave in your car/speaker/entertainment center. But, I believe that is kind of where their usefulness ends. I have quite the collection all the way down to the first iPhone (I hate it when it is referred to as 2G). All but one still works (it tried to take a swim). The iPhone5 is probably my favorite design - the later ones were too thin and would taco right on the SIM card connection. Point is - I like apple products, but their implementations are designed to be “difficult” for non-apple products. Non-apple products typically have to pay royalties for the ability to interface these. Why they do this is no mystery - they can make more money. Comparing Apple to Android is not ideal since one is real big on open source and the other is very proprietary.
Obviously, there is some kind of standard for USB modems. Apple does not follow that standard. Tethering to a windows PC requires special software beyond drivers. Most devices only need a driver. It is the additional application layer (special software) that makes it difficult to interface with the Peplink. That special software requires some sort of API for the driver to talk with the hardware (iPhone). Most device manufacturers follow standard APIs for easy comparability. Easy comparability is not a priority for Apple since they would rather be compatible with other Apple products and “partner” products.
Imagine if Apple made electric sockets - do you think they would be fully compatible with every electrical device?they would probably make one of the holes a square and sell that it is more efficient and allows for a smaller form factor.
Android devices are a dime a dozen, but if you are looking for a device for internet connectivity - the mifi devices are definitely the way to go for this type of backup WAN solution.
I agree it would be nice if connecting the iPhone could be an option, but I understand why Peplink would choose to invest in other tech instead. Too many hoops to jump through with Apple. No telling how much time it took to develop the bonjour forwarding feature that we have in our Peplinks. that dev process may be why they don’t want to mess with Apple specific stuff anymore.
A tethered used Android I picked up shows connected on router and device but stream data. I’ll start a new thread on this if needed.
Peplink - I’d still like to have iPhone tethering.
Edit: Data provider had a missing data code. Not related to peplink. All systems go now. Data streams and device is set-up as a backup.
Five and a half years folks have been asking for this. Approaching 2,000 days and the feature is still merely being kept if view.
I joined the board simply to bring this up again.
Any update on this? I was just trying to do this the other day. It would be awesome to have this feature in an emergency when you want to get an OOB connection going for troubleshooting and all you have is an iPhone (or Android).
Want OOB connection support iphone +1
This would be really useful. +1 bump.
Thread moved to Product Discussion / Feature Requests
& +1 for this as this can be very useful in remote support situations with Balance Routers, in Australia we have one of the highest ratio of iOS devices per head of population in the world.
USB Modem and Android Tethering
(taken from https://www.peplink.com/company/peplink-enterprise-features/)
Happy to Help,
Marcus 
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Hello @TK_Liew
Is there any update on the possibility of this feature request?
We found another article on how to do this with Linux for iOS devices.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/IPhone_tethering#Tethering_over_USB
To us, this is not a high priority, more a nicety when it comes to doing remote support.
Happy to Help,
Marcus
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FYI in case this adds a bit more fuel to the fire, I find that hooking up an iPad for its cellular hot spot support works far better than the mifi devices which I have tried. This first became apparent when travelling overseas when I compared the cell phone reception on various mifi devices to the cell phone reception and data throughput on my iPad, all using the same SIM card. So now I just pop the local country’s SIM card into my iPad. While I haven’t tried all mifi devices, I would rather connect my iPad or iPhone as a usb tethered modem than a mifi device.
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