Creating a Wireless Network (College Hehe..)

Question

I'm a college student trying to help everyone out.

We don't have WiFi or any reception here; so trying to access google.com (example) is impossible. But what we do have is 20GB of videos that we made that we want to be able to stream between the rooms.

I want to create a 'network folder' on my windows 10 computer that people can access via a wireless network that other people can see on their phones that looks like a WiFi network but it's only a wireless connection to my computer.So it's completely local.

How can I do this? Would I have to purchase any extra hardware, I'd prefer not to.

Many Thanks

Answer 1

Method 1: Assuming the computer is a laptop with Wi-Fi, Windows 10 has a "hotspot" feature built in. This is described in Use Windows 10 wifi hotspot with no internet connection linked in the comments.

Whether it actually works will depend on your laptop's hardware. Most new internal Wi-Fi modules support access point mode because it's required by WiFi-Direct, but it's still not a 100% guarantee. Your luck with USB Wi-Fi adapters will be a bit worse. Also, don't expect it to have particularly good range or to support many clients at once.

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Method 2: Obtain a typical home "wireless router", or a "range extender" (the kind with Ethernet uplink). It will still act as an Ethernet switch & Wi-Fi AP even without any WAN connection.

If you're okay with connecting your computer to the "router" with an Ethernet cable, you might get much better performance out of it than using hotspot mode. On the other hand, if you want the source computer to remain wireless, then this option will be much slower than hotspot mode.

Answer 2

If your devices have Bluetooth capabilities, you can use it to share your files.

However, the Bluetooth function has many limitations, such as slow transmission speed and short communication distance.

Answer 3

Trying to develop some points on SE so I thought I'd try to provide some additional input. NAS = Network Attached Storage which basically means a hard drive that is connected to the network that anyone on the network has access to. WAN = Wide-area Network. A WAN is a collection of LANs. A LAN is a Local-area Network, which is what you are essentially desiring to create. There is no contact to the "outside" world aka the Internet, just a version of an INTRAnet between you and friends. Hope this helps in some way! - BigRig