1. Home
  2. Wireless Networking
  3. Public wifi takes over my computer...

Public wifi takes over my computer...

My home wifi network has been up and operating well for a number of years. Recently, Portland started installing public wifi all over the city (MetroFi). At work, i connect with my laptop to the wifi network with no problem, but at home it's a different story. I'll connect to my home network, with an excellent connection - but the public wifi will "take over" my system. It takes me to its home page where I would have to sign up for their service - it doesn't let me do anything else. Sometimes, if I repair the wireless connection, it will solve the problem for a while - but later, usually, their signal will take over again, rendering my connection worthless.

I honestly have no idea how or why this is happening. I've removed this public network from my preferred list in my wireless setup; sometimes clearing my cache helps temporarily. What could this be? So far their support has not been able to help me. They say they transmit on channels 6 and 11, so I made sure and changed my router to a different channel - same result.

Please help! Doug

Reply to
Doug Wells
Loading thread data ...

On Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:53:18 -0800 (PST), Doug Wells wrote in :

You've probably got Windows XP configured to connect automatically to any unsecured network. Turn that off! Then make sure your home Wi-Fi has a _unique_ SSID with WPA and a strong passphrase.

Reply to
John Navas

Take a look at your Windows "Wireless Neighbourhood" list, pick a name that make your home router unique, ex: "myrouter"

Then give it to your wireless router, set WEP or WPA authentication if you so desire. Reboot the router for the change to take effect.

Now, give the same WEP/WPA handshake code to your laptop's wireless card.

Finally, pull up the "Wireless Neighbourhood" list again, click on "myrouter" to connect. The public WiFi will leave you alone. You may have to set up two profiles for your wireless card, in case you're away from home and want to connect to the public WiFi

Cheers

Reply to
bi241

On Wed, 16 Jan 2008 00:15:24 -0800 (PST), snipped-for-privacy@scn.org wrote in :

NOT a good choice. What I recommend is using your street address as your SSID, which ensure uniqueness, and makes it easy for neighbors to locate your wireless if they need to.

WEP is NOT a good choice -- it's useless -- use WPA. If the router needs rebooting, it will do it itself.

Use a strong passphrase. See wiki below for details.

NOT how to do it -- use View Available Wireless Networks.

Not necessarily. See my prior post.

Profiles? Only if running 3rd party software with that capability. And NOT needed if Windows is configured correctly.

Bad advice is worse than no advice.

Reply to
John Navas

nothing personal, but you seems way too ignorant about wifi to include these wiki links in your post. i bet you dont even understand their contents

Reply to
bi241

On Thu, 17 Jan 2008 01:58:29 -0800 (PST), snipped-for-privacy@scn.org wrote in :

You'd lose that bet -- they were written by me and Jeff Liebermann. ;)

Please post any real evidence you might have that what I've written above is incorrect -- if I've made mistakes, I'd like to correct them.

Reply to
John Navas

You've just proved that you are a fraud! Every article on Wiki is an collaborative effort of the community. You wrote them? Yeah, well...you know, i wrote the Bible.. bwahahaha!!!!!!!!!!

You can claim the author's right of your moronic NG posts, dumb ass. And i don't give a f*ck about that!!

Reply to
bi241

A professional in the industry will quickly recognize the wiki cellular was written by a person(s) that collected information from various sources and the wiki WiFi was written by persons actively involved in the everyday and practical implementation, using their professional experience.

Tossing up a few WiFi access points for residential or small office use and advocating consumer grade Linksys, Buffalo, Netgear, and D-Link products is not near the same league as installing full blown commercial systems enterprise advocating business, carrier, or enterprise products.

I'm not belittling those that install small systems or that advocate consumer grade products as a component failure would only affect a few computers, but its different when a failure affects hundreds of users.

Reply to
DTC

Cabling-Design.com Forums website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.