Connecting multiple devices to wifi

Question

I have a question and like so many of my questions I get the feeling that I'm not finding the answers through traditional methods because I lack the vocabulary.

I am starting a project where I need to take a windows based laptop and connect it to the internet through a wifi dongle. I then want to turn that laptop into a wifi hotspot and connect circa 30 mobile phones to it.

In my head this worked by buying a decent wifi dongle and then using software to virtualize the wireless adapter I would connect these phones and I was hoping that the strength of my dongle would be possibly be improved with a wifi repeater/booster.

This is all in preparation for a quiz game that takes place on a laptop and the mobile phones are querying the system for the next question through a POST operation, and pulling down just a few bits of text and a few other variables (so not much data is being passed, but all 30 or so devices are asking for it at the same time)

So now to the question. If my assumptions above are right how to I begin to understand what qualities I need in a wifi dongle, wifi repeater/booster and virtualization software?

If my assumptions are wrong, what do I need to be looking at?

Cheers for any help you can offer.

Other basic info that may or may not be relevant: I'm in the UK and I'm willing to spend a few hundred pounds on a solution to this. The mobiles will be running a version of android (preferably newer than version 2, hopefully closer to 4 though).

Answer 1

You need to google internet connection sharing (ICS)

here is an example I found

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-share-an-internet-connection-in-windows-7.html