Connecting wired ethernet switch to Windows 8 laptop to get internet from laptops wifi

[Tim Byers]

Is the following possible?

I'm trying to build a mobile demo kit for a voip phone system. Here's the setup:
-VoIP phone powered by PoE
-PoE switch to power phones, with WAN uplink port
-Windows 8 Laptop with ethernet and WLAN adapters
-Mobile hotspot from mobile provider (wifi only)

I'd like to connect the laptop to the internet using the hotspot. No brainer.
Phones connect to PoE switch. Also easy
Connect the WAN uplink port on the PoE switch to the ethernet port on the laptop, and share the laptop's WLAN Internet connection to it. This is the stumper.

I've seen it described so many times as the other way (making the laptop into a wireless access point) and even seen it described my way in Windows 7, but the sharing seems to have changed or been limited in Windows 8. I also know there are devices called mobile routers but before I buy one I wanted to find out if this could be done without one.

Can this be done in Windows 8?
Thanks!

More info:
Here's a video on how to do it in Windows 7. Unfortunately Windows 8 takes the choices away of what interfaces to share to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VywTGFlk9_g

This link describes some CMD wizardry to do share the Wifi but I can't figure out how to interpret it for wired connections:

http://techzane.com/make-wireless-ad-hoc-access-point-in-windows-8/

 

[bill001g]

Maybe another reason for me to not load windows 8 ?

I would think the ICS in windows 8 is the same as the other previous versions. Microsoft has some pretty good instruction on how to setup ICS. You can in general put a number of different devices behind the shared port. Your case is a little easier because it tends to be simpler to share out a ethernet port than make the PC also work as a AP.

You of course need to be extremely careful about what is running on the PC especially with VoIP traffic passing though it. If the PC would get busy running something it can cause a lot of jitter in the traffic moving between the interfaces.

 

[Tim Byers]

Yes, I don't expect the voice quality to be very good but for my purposes I just need the phones to register and process calls as I describe the features. Getting open internet from customers is so hit or miss I'd like to have a way out when they can't get their network open for me.