Okay, I know this is a bit stupid, but I was wondering whether it's possible to use router with high speed access in hotels. I know a lot of hotels have an initial sign in page where you agree to the charges. Would you be able to get to that page with a laptop connected to a router, or could you just use the laptop first to get a connection and then add the router? Do hotels have any special setup that would prevent this?

If this is feasible, are there any really compact wireless routers out there? I know none of them are that large, but is there anything really small?

L

Do you want to share more than one machine or are you worried about security?

If you're worried about security, most hotel networks sit behind a firewall.

If you want to share machines, you should be able to connect more than one machine, it would probably be best to check with the hotel first.

What exactly are you trying to accomplish? If you simply want to have two laptops share your one Internet connection, I suggest bringing a laptop configured with Windows XP or 2000 (or Mac OS X) and both a wireless card and a wired ethernet connection. Plug the wired ethernet connection into the hotel's jack and follow the normal sign in procedure. Then set up your wireless card in ad-hoc mode, and enable Internet Connection Sharing (NAT) on your wireless card interface. Your 2nd laptop should be able to access the Internet as well.

You'll have to figure out the specifics for your particular hardware, and you may have to manually set an IP address and router address on the second laptop, but this works just fine for me. I also use this method to share my dialup connection with colleagues waiting with me at the airport lounge.

If the hotel is handing you an IP address, DNS info, and default gateway IP via DHCP, then any SOHO router (presumably including the latest router/wireless-access-point combinations) should be able to pick up the necessary info via DHCP, and you could simply use a machine on the internal network to hit the proxy web page in order to agree to the charges.

By doing this you could possibly allow others to steal the hotel's bandwidth. Won't a long Cat V cable cut it for a few days?

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Saving the world, one clue at a time.

I mostly just want to have wireless access (I said it was a bit stupid) for myself. Occassionally, sharing access would be useful. I do use WEP and MAC address control so wouldn't be blantantly opening up the hotel's connection to the world.

I haven't tried it, but a small Linksys WET11 wireless bridge might do the trick.

QL

Most of the hotels that have the "logon" page give you access based on your NIC's MAC address. So, if you bring in another device with another MAC address, you'd need to reregister.

To get around this, make sure your router can clone another MAC address. Then, just program the router with your laptop's MAC address, and you should be all set!

I suspect that the hotel login does register your MAC address, so you would have to figure that out.

I've thought of this same thing before as they always have this extraordinarily short cord that only goes to the desk, when I really want to use my laptop kicked back on the bed or sofa.

It's just much simpler to bring a very long cable with you and deal with it that way (or move the desk halfway across the room, as generally, the cord is only short between the PC and the modem).

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robb is clearly within the margin of sampling error - Googlism

The Marriott STSN broadband does not care what MAC address you have. Why should they? If I pay $10 / night for broadband, why can't I use more than one PC on that connection, especially if I'm carrying a work laptop and a personal laptop?

As I speak, I'm logged on to STSN w/ a router & Switch combo, with 2 other PC's hooked on. I have a friend who is working with me on a project, and my personal PC is being synced via the web. It works beautifully.

I'm buying an Apple Airport just for this purpose as it's relatively small, does NAT routing (Network Address Translation), and will allow a shared connection. I've yet to see if it'll work or not but I can't imagine why it wouldn't. The hotel network simply hands you an IP and I believe that the first HTTP request is intercepted by them. Thereafter it's just like normal internet access. So the router would lease the IP, you'd go in as normal and tell them you want to pay sky high rates for broadband and off you go. I HOPE it works that way.

Surfing right now from the Westin Copley (Boston) using a Fujitsu S Series with built-in WiFi and an SMC7004AWBR accessing their GuestTek service (free here).

I have the router spoofing the PC MAC, though it seemed to work without doing it. Might matter more if it was paid service.

Also interesting is that it seems to work better with the router's DHCP server ON.

Every 1-2 days, I had to disconnect and renew the router's Internet connection.

It's worked well! Much better to surf in bed than at the desk...

I was in a Doubletree over the weekend and they have changed their little sign about paying $9.95 per 24 hour period for the internet connection to paying $9.95 per PC for each PC you hook up to their room connection.

Don't know if it's real or not, or if they could even tell if you had more then one on the router, but the signs were certainly different. Also not sure if it goes by MAC address or not, so that if I unplug one machine and put another on, will I get charged again?

I think that a lot of confusion over what the policy is regarding more than one MAC address per room is related more to the topology of the hotel's network, rather than a desire to gouge for more than one computer in a room.

What I mean is that I can imagine a situation where a hotel is wired with the wiring from each room going to regular hubs on each floor, which eventually lead to a central router than handles the DCHP issues, billing , etc. If this is the case, then the router would have no way of knowing which room a particular computer is in, other than what's provided during the login/billing screen. Once that's entered, the MAC address would be the only way for it to associate future traffic with that same session. If a new MAC address appears on the network, the router would have no way of knowing that it was coming from the same room.

An alternative configuration would be to have wiring for each room go directly into a smart router that handled all of the DHCP/billing issues. In this case, there would have to be one for each floor, unless an individual wire was run from each room to a central location.

I have no idea how these things are typically set up, but I think that my first scenario above would be used quite a bit, and would explain the single MAC address policy.

When there is a group of us staying in adjacent rooms, I just connect my iBook to the ethernet port, fire up the Airport, and turn on connection sharing. Anyone with an account on my iBook gets wireless for free.

-alan in seattle (for now)