does anyone have hotspot working?

[quixote]

Um, I take it I can just put a big redface icon in my sig and be done, right? (Nowhere near red enough, that's why multiples.)

So the problem  with not seeing the web is that the *modem* isn't really working, while the wifi is fine?

(I'm a biologist who never really "got" networking of any kind, so bear with me here.)

So what is my actual question?

The internet connection is via mobile phone plans. This is the situation:

• one SIM in an iphone (which I soon hope never to use again ) which works in the sense of providing the laptop with internet access
  
• one SIM in my pinephone which was working for sms and browsing on the phone.
  
• The pinephone shows up in the laptop's list of network connections, and it connects and shows data going between phone and laptop. But nothing on the laptop can actually see the internet.
  

So it would seem that the mobile data connection is functional since it works on the pinephone itself. There's also some kind of connection being established between pinephone and laptop that's visible in networkmanager. (I'm on Debian 10 with kde.)

What's the roadmap to get the pinephone to actually provide internet access to the laptop?