• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Help Problem connecting to public Wifi

F

furry4

Lurker
Hi,
I just got my HTC inspire couple of days ago. I was able to connect to the wifi at my home properly, no problems. Today, however, when i went to school, I tried connecting to the open wifi there. Usually, it should ask for a username and password which is our school ID, and then it connects you to the internet for free. The phone connected to the wifi without any of the information, and was also showing a pretty strong signal. However, none of the pages that require internet worked (youtube, facebook, market place, etc). I'm not really sure what is going on. I am new to android so maybe I am doing something wrong.
Thanks for the help.
 
Check to see if the network your connecting to is "Ad-Hoc" if it is that means your connecting to another computer and will not get internet access. If it's called "Free Public WiFi" then that's actually a Windows XP machine falsely creating a wireless network, and it will be listed as ad-hoc. This happens in airports all the time.
 
The wifi is under my school's initials ex: "ABC" and if i click on it, it just says Security: Open. I'm not sure if that means it is Ad-hoc or not.
 
I think it will tell you if it's an ad-hoc network by clicking on "Wireless and Networks" >> "Wi-fi Settings" when your not connected to it (if it remembers it) and tell you if it's ad-hoc or other.

Open networks imply that there is no security enabled, so if you usually had to plug in a username/password to get on that might be the wrong network being broadcast by someone else. Look and see if there are more than one wireless networks that look familiar to you and try the one that's got some security enabled.
 
I just did what you said, "wireless and Networks" to "wi-fi settings" and all it says is security: Open.

I believe it is the right network because it is under the same name that I connect through my laptop. Under my wireless networks on my laptop, the same "ABC" has security: unsecured. It is also the only network available when I am at school. If it matters, we had to originally register a wireless card for internet access.
 
In that case they probably have a security protocol enabled which recognizes the MAC address of that wireless card which is how you are able to get access and surf the web with your laptop.

If you can confirm this, then maybe you can give them your mac address to get access for your phone. Menu>>Settings>>About Phone>>Hardware Information>>Wi-Fi MAC address.

Hope this helps!
 
Ahh you are a genius!!! I'm sure that will work. I will find out tomorrow at school, but it sounds like it should work! Thank you so much!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom