Amazon Fire Phone: The Missing Manual

Chapter 7. Getting Online: WiFi, 4G, and Mobile Hotspots

You’ll learn to:

• Connect to a WiFi network

• Turn your Fire phone into a WiFi hotspot

• Use Airplane mode

THE FIRE PHONE WAS built as much for going online as for making phone calls. It gives you access to the Web, maps, videos, and more. Just about anything you can do on the Internet on a computer, you can do on your Fire phone.

But first you have to get online. This chapter shows you the ways you can do so, plus a few more tricks like turning your Fire into a WiFi hotspot to provide an Internet connection for nearby computers and other devices.

How the Fire Phone Gets Online

THE MOMENT YOU FIRE up your Fire, you’re ready to go online. You’re automatically connected to a high-speed 3G or 4G connection. These are called data connections, and they’re designed for getting on the Internet fast.

Note

When the 3G or 4G network isn’t available, the Fire phone still lets you make calls using an older, slower network. But that network isn’t suitable for web browsing or other Internet activity.

To connect via 3G, 4G, or the voice network, there’s nothing you need to do. Your Fire connects automatically. WiFi, the fastest kind of connection, takes a little more work, as you’ll see in the next section.

Connecting via WiFi

WHEN YOU CONNECT TO the Internet ...