Hotspot from Cell Phone

Good morning.

I have an iphone12, and AT&T internet (wireless box that we use in the house), with a cell plan that provides hotspot (from the cell). When on my MAC desktop, I typically use my Ethernet connection to access the internet. Sometimes I use hotspot so as to not exceed our data limit.

The box usually works great, as does our Wi-Fi, Ethernet connections, and hotspots... but service has gone out for long periods (no real explanation on that. Ever. AT&T is a nightmare.). The key thing is, I usually can use my cell phone as a hotspot to use internet during these outages- I plug the phone in via usb, select to use my personal hotspot, and select to turn on Wi-Fi from the cellphone settings (vs usb). If i looked at the Wi-Fi settings on my *phone* it appears one of our regular Wi-Fi networks is connected - this always seems to be the case.

On the *desktop* I select Wi-Fi in the MAC desktop’s network settings, make Ethernet inactive, and I make sure the Wi-fi network says my cellphone (which it always lands on no problem when using hotspot).

THIS time, however, this isn’t working. Thinking - as a NON tech, layperson - that perhaps my phone Wi-Fi settings needs to NOT read that it is connected to a normal Wi-Fi network in the house (which isn’t working because the wireless box isn’t), I tried selecting “use USB ONLY” from the iPhone settings when turning on my hotspot. This does not work either (on the MAC I have tried this with both the Wi-Fi enabled and trying to choose my phone as the network, Ethernet disabled, OR with Wi-Fi off and just trying to use the usb connection).

While this may be an overall AT&T failure, I’ve still always been able to use the iPhone hotspot to access the internet from the desktop. I do NOT know if something has been different under the iPhone Wi-Fi settings in the past when doing this, only that when everything is working, it shows a regular house Wi-Fi network.

If anyone has ANY clue as to why my hotspot might not be working, I’d be grateful to try something I haven’t. This is a huge problem, and I’m not sure what else to look at. Again, I am not ultra tech savvy, so layperson terms help! Hotspot has always worked regardless and I think my husband’s IS working (he has a PC, by the same phone).

Super frustrated.