Hotel Internet (Comcast) broken -- suggestions?

I'm staying at a Ramada Inn in the Washington D.C. area for a few months that advertises Ethernet internet access via Comcast in each room.

Normally it is dynamic IP (DHCP) setup. When you run your browser, a Comcast web page comes up and once you click on the "Connect" button, you're up and running for all TCP/IP applications.

Well, in my current room the internet access isn't working. Pings anywhere fail.

I had the hotel "engineer" come and replace the little box on the wall that branches off the Ethernet connector from the TV cable. The replacement was brand new (I watched him take it out of the packaging and install it). No change in net access.

The TV signal is what I would call excellent -- no visible noise, so as far as connection issues, it doesn't look like the obvious cause. All connectors seem tight and no frayed connections. I tried using a known-good Ethernet cable in place of the hotel's cable with no improvement.

The engineer is a bit challenged when talking about computers or electronics, so I think he's "maxed out" as far as troubleshooting. There seem to be several -- nay, many -- rooms where internet access is broken.

What is the network topology in a hotel? Is there a huge router or switch that handles all the traffic? I'd like to get ideas from the network newsgroup readers regarding how to fix this that I can suggest to the engineer -- or do it myself (I'm an electronics technician familiar with networking small offices and homes).

After changing rooms a few times I finally found one with an air-conditioner that didn't keep me awake all night, so I'm not likely to change rooms because of network access. (I have internet access during the day, but meetings take up much of this time, so this really limits my ability to e-mail, etc. during the day.) FYI, Internet access in some of the other rooms I've stayed in worked fine.

Any and all suggestions to help get internet into my hotel room would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Reply to
John E.
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It just struck me that this box might be a cable modem. Does this mean that there might be some switches inside that I can fiddle to try to fix the problem?

Ideas?

Reply to
John E.

I had similar problems where a hotel was going under renovations. Could be a lot of things that can cause what you observe.

Reply to
Dana

Make friends with someone staying in a nearby room w/ working internet and put a wireless router on their modem.

Reply to
nicklax

You may benefit by installing Wireshark (fka ethereal) and sniffing to see what traffic you see. there are a lot of things that can be broken. But getting a sniffer capture may point you in the right direction.

Do you get a link light?

Reply to
Hansang Bae

By "self-assigned IP address" do you mean its a 169.254/16 address?

If so it means DHCP ain't working.

Reply to
Rod Dorman

Thus spake Hansang Bae:

I'll get an equivalent for the Mac and see what I can see. What should I look for?

Yes, I get a link light. And my TCP/IP control panel says that I'm getting a self-assigned IP address (is the address important? If so, I'll have to check when I go back to the hotel tonight).

Ideas? Suggestions?

Thanks,

Reply to
DaveC

Thus spake Rod Dorman:

I don't remember the exact address, but yes, it's 169.x.x.x I think.

So, this means that maybe the TV cable to my room isn't hooked to the mega-switch in the cable closet? Is that the likeliest problem?

Thanks,

Reply to
DaveC

Thats one possibility, another is some router not forwarding the DHCP request.

Reply to
Rod Dorman

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