hotel room without wireless

[Richardma]

Anyone know how to convert CAT5 Cable to wireless in the Hotel room. I love to bring my PDA with me , when I travel. But, I found a problem to using the internet in most of the hotel.
Problem: Most hotels only have CAT5 network , when you plugin your notebook computer, you have to go to the login page to login. But when you using PDA(wireless). The question is how to use the internet?. If you bring a wireless rounter with you. When you plugin . how to make it found the hotel login page on your PDA?

[eangulus]

Easiest method is to buy a Wireless bridge. Linksys sells these. Its a device that will tern an Ethernet Cable into a wireless signal.

[mcsegeek]

I travel a great deal and although there are a great number of ways to deal with this issue...this is how I get around it.

I bought one of the little Dlink pocket routers like this one (http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=346) for a great price (less than $30). What you can do with this product (and others I'm sure...) is clone the MAC address of your laptop's ethernet port. Basically...it'd work like this...

1.) Plug your laptop into the hotel network.
2.) Jump through their proxy hoops to get out onto the net.
3.) Unplug the cable from the hotel network and into the pocket router.
4.) From the router's config pages...set the NIC to clone your laptop's MAC address.
5.) Plug the hotel network into the pocket router WAN port.

Badda bing! You're sharing their network wirelessly...doesn't take a lot of time at all. I've really enjoyed the Dlink one I got...small...flexible...and it comes with a nice travel case. Linksys (or Cisco now), Apple, and others all make similar products and some of them have the benefit of not needing a power adapter and just plugging straight into the wall outlet (a big benefit IMHO), but I can't speak for exactly what kind of functionality they provide versus the Dlink product as I've never used them.

By the way...a bridge will not help you do what you want...you need at least an AP...but if you get one of the devices like I mentioned...you get the added benefit of a NAT firewall between your device and the hotel LAN (which can be a very good thing by the way).

[eangulus]

I can't see why you can't just plug in a standard access point via the WANport. Set the internet connection to Automatic DHCP.

Then the first time you access the net it will be ready for logging in.

[mcsegeek]

I can't see why you can't just plug in a standard access point via the WANport. Set the internet connection to Automatic DHCP.

Then the first time you access the net it will be ready for logging in.

Because many hotels control access to their internet connections by utilizing various methods but most often by controlling access via MAC addresses. Think filtering a wireless connection by only allowing certain MAC addresses... Now...if an AP allowed MAC address spoofing...then I certainly don't see why just an AP wouldn't work just as well (other than the fact that you don't get the benefits of a router).

By the way...this topic is certainly not Hermes specific and should likely be moved to a more appropriate forum.

[dbltap]

One note should be made.... If the hotel is using NAT to assign IP addresss, and you use a second NAT with your router... you may not be able to use various VPN clients. Double NAT'ing doesn't work for many IPSEC VPN clients. i.e. AT&T NetClient

A number of switch vendors offer the ability to limit each port on their switch to allow traffic to one MAC address per port. A bridge would show multiple MAC addresses and typically when the switch sees that, the port is automatically shut down. This is done in many cases where there is a $10-15 a day charge for internet access and the hotel doesn't want you setting up an AP to share the cost with your travel mates. Thus they limit to one MAC address per port. The router solution would show up with only one MAC address... but you then have the double NAT issue in some cases. If you are not using a VPN, that may not be a problem.

Just some additional data points to consider.

[chymmylt]

I love the linksys travel router - more expensive then their mini router (about the same size) except for 2 things that are key for me. First, it's powersupply is embedded and 110-220v and 2 - it let's you connect it to a hotel wireless hotspot and then share that hotspot over wifi. This is great - it means that 4 people with rooms next to each other can share the fee of the hotspot and share it. It also means I can share that same hotspot with my phone! :) The only downside on this one over the mini router is it only has one wired out jack but that's no big deal for me!

[Doom Tints]

Note that plugging a router into a network jack when the site in question is set up to use DHCP can cause some havoc on the network. I doubt many hotels are savvy enough to start hunting around for rogue routers when people in the hotel can no longer get IP addresses, but bear in mind that it's always a possibility. It's probably not a good idea to leave something like this plugged into the network longer than necessary.

Also note that whenever I've encountered a location where the establishment requires you to log into a web page in order to access anything, I've had no problem doing that from the Hermes.

[chymmylt]

Note that plugging a router into a network jack when the site in question is set up to use DHCP can cause some havoc on the network. I doubt many hotels are savvy enough to start hunting around for rogue routers when people in the hotel can no longer get IP addresses, but bear in mind that it's always a possibility. It's probably not a good idea to leave something like this plugged into the network longer than necessary.

Also note that whenever I've encountered a location where the establishment requires you to log into a web page in order to access anything, I've had no problem doing that from the Hermes.

The one I mentioned only asigns an IP to people on it's end and not outside - it even uses it's own IP range. It is designed to be transparent to the existing network.

[Doom Tints]

Yes, I know. However, depending upon the network setup, this can still cause problems.

For example, some versions of Symantec's 'On Command/CCM' (a suite for pushing software updates to computers automatically when they are booted on the network) can communicate with some routers in such a way to where the router thinks it needs to try to provide one of its IP addresses to the network. This invariably ends up having a computer in some random place on the network ending up with a 192.168.x.x IP. When an admin sees this, he/she knows that there is a rogue router on the network.

[SH4YD33]

Alot of work... as you know these hotel internet connections are controlled. If you're posting here use that 3g or even edge instead of giving the hotel your credit card to have a field test (is that a ppc program?) or field day with.

[chymmylt]

Yes, I know. However, depending upon the network setup, this can still cause problems.

For example, some versions of Symantec's 'On Command/CCM' (a suite for pushing software updates to computers automatically when they are booted on the network) can communicate with some routers in such a way to where the router thinks it needs to try to provide one of its IP addresses to the network. This invariably ends up having a computer in some random place on the network ending up with a 192.168.x.x IP. When an admin sees this, he/she knows that there is a rogue router on the network.

Well I doubt this will happen in most hotel networks and aside from that - I doubt that there is hardly ever a network admin on hand 99.9% of the time :)

[SayMobile]

The Linksys Travel Router is the product I'd highly recommend as I've been using it around the world for some years now.

It has a hardware switch that let's you control its functionality. In one position, the Wired Ethernet is simply converted to Wi-Fi and once you connect, you still get the IP from the hotel's DHCP server. If you need to share the connection with more systems (such as your laptop and your phone or with some colleagues in adjacent rooms), you just switch to another mode after logging in to the hotel's network and the Linksys becomes a NAT router and gives you a private IP.

It also comes with a nice travel case...

[chymmylt]

The Linksys Travel Router is the product I'd highly recommend as I've been using it around the world for some years now.

It has a hardware switch that let's you control its functionality. In one position, the Wired Ethernet is simply converted to Wi-Fi and once you connect, you still get the IP from the hotel's DHCP server. If you need to share the connection with more systems (such as your laptop and your phone or with some colleagues in adjacent rooms), you just switch to another mode after logging in to the hotel's network and the Linksys becomes a NAT router and gives you a private IP.

It also comes with a nice travel case...

That's the device I've been talking about - the only thing I add to the kit is a european outlet adapter (which fits nicely inside the coiled ethernet cable included ;)