US Patent 9572184 Portable devices paired to share wireless connectivity

A set of portable devices may be paired together to share a combined set of connectivity options. Each of the portable devices may have one or more connections to external networks, and may be paired to each other such that one device may use the external connection of another device. The pairing system may evaluate connectivity strength, battery power, and other factors for routing connections between devices to external networks. Incoming connections, such as cellular telephone calls, may be selectively routed to one of the various devices in certain circumstances and a different device in other circumstances. An incoming phone call may be answered and responded to by any of the connected devices, even though the connection may have been originally received by a different device.