I am not entirely sure what kind of radio fuckery happens, but my phone (Oneplus 6 with LineageOS) can be connected to a 5 Ghz wifi network and have a 5 GHz hotspot open at the same time.
I am assuming the wifi chip has two (or more) somewhat independent frontends, since my home wifi and the phone hotspot are on two different 5 GHz frequencies.
Do you normally have SIMless service? 🤨
The hotspot function basically just lets you connect other devices to the Internet through the phone’s cell service. No service == no hotspot.
Apps may allow you to use it as a range extender tho.
My phone will hotspot when it’s connected to WiFi. I can even tether it to a desktop PC and use it as a WiFi adapter.
Well, technically that’s not a “hotspot”. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it’s a Wi-Fi extender.
I’ll have to disagree on that one, WiFi extenders extend an existing network, keeping the same network and DHCP is done by the original access point.
A hotspot creates a new network, and DHCP is handled by the hotspot, not the network on the WAN side.
And a poor Wi-Fi extender as well, since you halve your network bandwidth by using an extender with a single radio chip.
I’ve only seen that option on phones with two radios, it uses the 2.4GHz radio for one connection and the 5GHz radio for the other
I am not entirely sure what kind of radio fuckery happens, but my phone (Oneplus 6 with LineageOS) can be connected to a 5 Ghz wifi network and have a 5 GHz hotspot open at the same time.
I am assuming the wifi chip has two (or more) somewhat independent frontends, since my home wifi and the phone hotspot are on two different 5 GHz frequencies.
My phone does that just fine. It’s a Samsung limitation. All it does is create an access point and forward traffic via its default route.
Your phone works without service?
Of course it does(*).
(*): assuming you mean “works” in the sense of “turns on, lets me use it just fine, does everything that does not require an active cell connection”