Wifi Sharing not working on public WiFi?

[Android Central Question]

Hi all, I was wondering if anyone has had conflicting experiences with WiFi sharing.

I have an S8, and WiFi sharing at home works fine. I connect my phone to my wifi network, turn on the hotspot feature and wifi sharing, and easily connect my laptop to the phone's hotspot.

However, when I try the same thing with my city's public (free and paid) wifi networks, my laptop does not see my phone's hotspot network. (I know that I could just connect my laptop to the city network, but that's not the point of the question). Is there a reason for this? Could the city network be actively preventing the hotspot from showing up, or does the hotspot not show up if, for example, the connection from the phone to the network isn't good enough (speed/latency/stability)?

Thanks!

 

[Gumby1978]

Yes if on the same channel. There are free WiFi analyzer Apps that can help you troubleshoot this.