Personal hotspot setup. iPhone 5 Share Everything Plan

[Tony51]

When I try to enable the free personal hotspot on my iPhone 5, at the set up personal hotspot button, I receive a response to call Verizon at 611 or go to the Verizon website... There is nothing on the multiple links to find this information...nothing on videos, how to's etc...the 611 is obviously overloaded with purchases etc..

Can anyone explain how to enable this key feature..I need to use my iPad on the road using this hotspot... Thanks a lot!

Tony

[5Point]

Here's what worked with my iPad 2 which is AT&T branded.

From iPhone 5: Settings>General>Cellular>Personal Hotspot ON>Wifi Password XXXXXXXX

Then from iPad: Settings>Wifi>Other>

.............give it a little time to come up..............

better yet......get in the car away from your home/office wifi..................

Personal Hot Spot will  be identified the same as name listed in the "About" tab in General Settings. (i.e. "Joe's iPhone')

then enter Password you established for Personal Hot Spot..........and your on the way.

Hope this helps

[Steve_m1]

I suspect you have the family share plan. Mine does the same thing. In talking to one of the guys at the Verizon store, I was told that Verizon only enables the hotspot function if you have the share everything plan - pay more / less data. I found I could get it enable for an addition $20? or something like that per month. Pretty much the cost of changing to the share everything, but then the data allowance is so small that I couldn't use it as a hot spot. Argh!  Why do I always fell ripped off when I have to pick a plan?

[rrankins]

Yes, if you have a family share plan (like I still do because I still have unlimited data on my phone line ) instead of the new share everything plan, personal hotspot requires an additional monthly fee to be enabled. For a 3G device it's $20/month for 2GB of hotspot data. for a 4G device like the iPhone 5, it's $30/month for 2GB of data. Not sure why for 4G it costs $10 more per month when you don't get any more data allowance. Sure, it's faster, but that just means you'll use the data up faster, right? Also supposedly you can connect up to 8 devices on 4G hotspot instead of 5, but that doesn't mean anything to me when I only need to connect 1 device.

[vzw_customer_support]

Hi Tony51! I'm excited to hear you've received your iPhone 5. I noticed rrankins has a great point, the Hotspot is only included in the Share Everything plan. So if you happen to be on a different plan (whether it's Unlimited Data or 2 GB for $30.00 or other tiered data plans) the Hotspot would need to be added to your account as a separate feature. Just a small clarification on that pricing though. If you have the $29.99 Unlimited Data plan still and are activating the Hotspot on a 4G LTE device like the iPhone 5, the Hotspot is $30.00 but for Unlimited Hotspot, not just 2 GB. If you have the $29.99 Unlimited and have a 3G device (like the iPhone 4s for example) it would be $20.00 for the 2 GB Hotspot. So the price difference is actually because you get much more with a 4G device on top of the handset data. If you have a tiered data plan, such as the $30 for 2 GB, the Hotspot is still $20.00 more for 2 GB with a 3G or 4G device, but the amount is combined with your handset allowance so you get 4 GB for $50.00 total (same price, but the data allowances are combined along with the access).

I hope that helped to clarify the pricing for the Hotspot and why your phone would suggest to call 611 to provision the feature. If you're still having trouble or need additional assistance, let us know.

JenniferH_VZW

Please follow us on Twitter @vzwsupport

[rrankins]

Jennifer - thanks for the clarification on the 4G hotspot being unlimited if you are already on an unlimited data plan.

That difference from the 3G hotspot feature I had previously was not made clear to me when I added this feature to my iPhone 5. Knowing that now, I don't mind the extra $10/month as much!

[Tony51]

Yes, I did have the Share Everything Plan, which includes the hotspot feature, that was why I was questioning why I was unable to set it up on the new phone without calling Verizon. I did call and the tech was able to resolve last Saturday.

Thanks for the detail, though the scenarios you listed we're not applicable to my specific situation. However I am sure others who read your update will be helped.

Thanks!

Tony

[Jeff_c2 · Accepted solution]

(sounds like OP got this resolved; i'm sharing this info for others...)

I ran into the same problem (prompted to call 611 when trying to enable personal hotspot on iphone 5)

Fix:  restart iphone.    (i.e. hold down power button until shutdown option shows, then shutdown and restart)

More info:  I dont think i rebooted my iphone5 since it got provisioned/activated a couple days ago.

I went through the standard instructions on the website for turning on personal hotspot, but it didnt occur to me to restart the phone.

Verizon (on 611) said the personal hotspot feature was provisioned, and should work; suggested the restart.

Did a a restart and was able to enable personal hotspot.  Just speed-tested it with another wifi client... 5.62 Mbps over LTE.  Fantastic.

-jeff

[schittenden]

I tried this restart, and it didn't seem to help.  I still get the prompt to call 611.  Any other suggestions?