Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray (ST18i) USB Tethering on your 3G data phone plan.

Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray (ST18i) USB Tethering on your 3G data phone plan.


Having trouble getting your USB tethering to work on your Windows 7 computer?

First and foremost, make sure you have the latest Sony Ericsson PC connect software installed on your PC. 
Note : You do not need to launch the PC connect software for USB tethering to work.

Issue :
You booted up your notebook or PC with win 7. You connect your xperia ray into the USB port and selected the USB tethering option on the phone. Win 7 then detects the presence of a Internet sharing device but takes a long time to connect to the internet. After awhile the network connection fails to connect to the internet. You are out of your wits on this one and wonder what has gone wrong.

Problem :
Upon connecting your phone to the USB port on your computer and selecting the USB tethering option on the phone, the phone should start serving the DHCP request and issue an IP address. But for some reason this is not happening. Without an IP address, it is not possible to connect to the internet.

Solution:
To my surprise, the solution is quite simple. First of all, all you need to do is to select the option to "connect your phone memory". Once the phone memory connection is established, navigate to the USB tethering option and enable that. A warning will pop up about disconnecting the phone memory, just tap on ok. The phone memory will then get disconnect from your computer. Just about this time, an IP address will be served to your computer. After i managed to get it to work, i'm no longer able to replicate the failure. Not too sure if the latest PC connect software helped to solve the problem.


Although USB tethering is not the only way to connect to the internet from your phone, i found that this method generate the least heat from the phone. As some of you guys might experience, turning on data and wi-fi for tethering will cause the phone to heat up fairly quickly. This heat generated is a by product and it is a waste of battery juice. This is why i strongly prefer USB tethering over other methods.


If you are experiencing the same problem on another Sony Ericsson phone model, maybe you can give this solution a try.


That's It. Happy surfing.



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