I figured out my necessary process to use wifi router, though I am not sure why. I have recreated this a few times now.
1) In Comm Manager I turn on wifi sharing. I wait as it starts up.
2) It works momentarily then I get the message I have lost my data connection.
3) I reconnect to data in Comm Manager or settings>connections but
4) Wifi sharing is greyed out and I can't disable it.
5) I open wifi router from Programs. I hit "Stop" then
6) Open task manager and manually shut down the wifi router app
7) Turn wifi sharing On in Comm Manager again
Good to go.
Obviously when I lose my data connection it throws the whole thing off. Just not sure why this occurs.