We have a smart phone mostly because our daughter made fun of me for not having one. It did come in handy once. My wife and I were in an airport and wanted to fire up our laptop, but were unwilling to pay the $11 access fee for the airport wifi system. However, the phone was able to make a 4G cellular connection, and used it to set up a short range wifi link to the laptop. This was called a "Mobile AP (Access Point)". It is not quite the same as "tethering", which seems to involve a USB cable. It worked well, better than the wifi in most campgrounds, and since the phone was making a cellular connection, and our plan includes 4G and 5 GB of data, I don't think it cost us anything.
If a 2G connection had been the only thing available (is therer still such a thing?), I don't know if the phone would have made a Mobile AP out of it. But even if it did, I don't think we would have been willing to put up with S-L-O-W data rate. But I suspect 3G would have been at least acceptable, though the data rates seem to be different from one carrier to another.
The vocabulary and terminology of this stuff tends to trip me up. I don't know if any of the above describes a "hot spot". But I know I was pleased.
Bill
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