February 2022 • Macworld 107At one point, this
was a popular
way to create
what was once
called a ‘software
base station’
and now is more
generally called a
‘personal hotspot’.
But it’s also a
great way to bridge
your network if
you have an older
Mac with either
broken, missing,
failing, or weak
Wi-Fi. As Apple has
matured its line-
up of computers,
it has also upgraded the flavours of
Wi-Fi supported. Macs older than
five or so years include slower, older
versions of Wi-Fi and network cards
that have weaker signal transmission
and reception as well as radios
with less tolerance in sorting out
overlapping signals.
Ethernet and Internet Sharing
offers one way to fix that if you have
an easy enough way to connect two
desktop Macs with Ethernet ports.
(You can connect laptops, too, but
then this solution works only when the
sharing Mac is present.) If either Mac
lacks Ethernet, you can add it through
a USB-C or Thunderbolt 3 dock for
newer Macs or a USB adapter or
Thunderbolt 2 adapter or dock for
older Macs.- Connect the two Macs via an
Ethernet cable. This can be a direct
connection or through Ethernet ports
on power line networking adapters,
which use home electrical wiring for
connectivity. (See ‘Add a wired base
station’ in ‘How to use your Mac’s
Wi-Fi menu to sort out weak areas of
Wi-Fi coverage [fave.co/3ptcu4Q].’)
Set up Internet Sharing so that one Mac relays Wi-Fi–based
Internet access to another via Ethernet.