One of the reasons we bought an Apple TV was to provide us with an easy (and quality) way of being able to display content from the iPad on a television - not only at home, but also when on holiday. Now we're just about to go off for a break and want to use it for this purpose, and I've realised the problem that comes with the ATV needing to be connected to the same network as the iPad - not a problem at home, of course, but a major issue if it's at locations such as where we're going this weekend, where there is no network available.

I've read up various solutions for this problem, the most common being using a router or Airport Express to create a network, but of course this means lugging yet another device around (and defeats on one of the reasons I wanted to do this in the first place - I may as well take my laptop and plug that directly in). The solution that won't require additional devices is creating a hotspot on the iPad, and I'm fine with doing this - other than I'm worried about having little control over the devices' use of 3G data, when the sole purpose of creating the network is to allow the transfer of local data. An iPad doesn't allow one to enable "personal hotspot" when "cellular data" is disabled, so there's not a choice of having the former without the latter being on.

Can anyone advise whether there are any options to ensure the iPad or "attached" ATV don't use 3G data in these circumstances?

I'm mindful that the data on my iPad is 1. provided by my friend (he generously lets me share his data) and 2. is for 2 degrees' own coverage areas only (he buys the large packs), so it's important I can control this!

I see that my (Android) phone does enable a hotspot to be enabled without having the 3G data turned on; I can successfully connect the iPad to that (am at work so can't test the whole scenario) - would this work as an alternative? Or does this introduce other problems? I'd rather avoid having to throw another device into the mix, but if it ensures no data usage...

Thanks for any advice.