Not So Hot On The Hotspot

(I work in chat. The customer says that her hotspot isn’t working. She cannot connect her phone to it but the laptop will.)

Customer: “My phone is unable to connect to its [Hotspot On Device]. My laptop does and so do other devices.”

Me: “You want to connect the hotspot on your phone to that same phone. Is that correct?”

Customer: “Yes, I want to connect the hotspot to my [Cellphone] but it doesn’t seem to work.”

Me: “You cannot do that.”

Customer: “They didn’t tell me that when I added it.”

Me: “I do apologize, but you cannot connect that hotspot to the device that is on. It would be using its own data.”

Customer: “So when I don’t have service in a area, I can’t connect my phone to the hotspot? It’s weird because when I added it, it connected to my [Cellphone].”

Me: “No, you cannot. You have to use an external hotspot if you are in an area with no service.”

Customer: “Oh, okay. It’s weird because one of my friends had a [Different Cellphone Model] and I didn’t have a working phone so I used it as a wifi hotspot.”

Me: “Again, that was an external source. Your phone cannot connect to itself. Your regular service and your devices data work on the same network. If one does not have data, the other will not either.”

Customer: “I never knew it was like that. So my personal opinion is ‘who would pay $50.00 for someone to use your hotspot?’.”

Me: “The hotspot is so other devices can connect to your data.”

Customer: “Why?”