This Issue has been reviewed and accepted.
An engineer will be assigned to work on it according to its priority.

I have submitted Issue 1140 which covers this idea more broadly.

This can be done by modifying /system/etc/wifi/tiwlan.ini

WiFiAdhoc = 1
dot11DesiredSSID = HTCG1Default
dot11DesiredBSSType = 0 

But if Google Introduce it on Next Firmware it would be Very nice

Yes, and ideally it should work with wpa_supplicant, which currently does not appear
to have any effect.  Ideally, it would also allow MAC filtering, which also does not
appear to have any effect despite a section of tiwlan.ini that seems to indicate that
it should.

HetaIDP: have you submitted the patch for code review ?

Do anyone have a status for this fix? Can anyone confirm that HetalIDP´s fix is working?

The patch doesn't work for me either.

The patch doesn't work for me either.

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This does seem semi-important as it could be the basis for some differentiate apps.

I have submitted a patch to the master branch for adding Adhoc Wifi support.  The
patch only provides the ability to programatically add or connect to a Wifi Network.
 It does not modify the Settings App to take advantage of that.  However, the
settings app could easily be modified to use the code.  I may submit a patch for that
soon as well.

Link is here:
https://review.source.android.com/9714

option to share 3G connection to a PC using ad-hock would be awesome and realy a hit 
for business users, connect your laptop and phone on teh go wirelessly over wifi

anyone knows the current status of this?

So, I have the same question as koliaskostas... Ad hoc support will be very useful and 
seems to be very easy to implement. I don't want to root my phone but without ad hoc 
support I'll do it probably.

Please add support for adhoc networks. I want to connect to internet through my laptop 
shared lan connection.

And how do I Edit that file to enable as hoc on my Magic.

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You CAN connect your HTC Hero to an ad-hoc network. I've done it with mine.

The process is a bit complicated, but it's explained on the internet. Basically, you
have to root your Hero and edit 2 wifi configuration files in order to manually add
your wifi ad-hoc network.

It should be done with care, though, because wrong settings can remove the wifi
functionnality from the phone. You would then had to do a factory reset to get it back.

So back up your phone before doing this tweak.

Sent you an email.

To other people with the same issue : 

Basically followed that :
http://blog.joint.net/2009/07/connecting-android-phone-through-adhoc.html

But changed some things as my adb shell has no root rights by default, so I couldn't
do the adb push commands.

Had to copy the files on the sd card, and get then back to their place using dd
command + chown and chmod.

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We should be able to do this without rooting the phone. It doesn't make sense! When you 
root your mobile phone you can share files on bluetooth too, Android is supposed to be 
open-source so they should see these applications and add these functionalities faster 
but I guess we will not have Bluetooth file transfer on 1.6 either :( I paid a lot of 
money for my Hero but I keep using my Nokia 6630 since it can connect to my pc over 
bluetooth and also it can share files on bluetooh...

we bought this hero for such a thing and now we find its not possible, that sucks bad.

How long does it take to allow users to change three config lines? Apparently at
least 21 months (and still counting)

Our application needs this functionality, because its core service is to connect people 
around. In WinMobile we have already implemented this connectivity and would like to 
make the app crossplatform.

Our studio would also find this useful for a game we're developing. Keeping my
fingers crossed that it gets official support. 

So I see people talking about adhoc where mobile connects to a laptop. Can a adhoc
network be formed between mobiles, say 4 friends want to chat without using wifi AP.

I read that sdk does not provide adhoc capability to the application developer !!

You might want to look at Issue 1140 and also Wi-Fi Direct, neither of which are 
currently supported.

I dont know if it´s useful for you, but for me it worked fine.
There is a Software called Connectify http://www.connectify.me/ wich is using a
feature of Windows 7 that can provide an Infrastructure WLAN from a normal PC or
especially a Notebook. 
That works fine even it´s Beta!

Hope I can help you

Unfortunately it does not support many network adapters. And I have Intel 4965!
http://www.connectify.me/docs/index.html

This sucks. connectify doesn't work with 99% of intel wifi cards.  Please add adhoc 
networking support :)

I am supporting a free-for-everyone wireless mesh operating in adhoc-mode...but my G1
cannot connect easily to it. Annoying!