Internet connection at hotels

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Level 1

5 points

Internet connection at hotels

Every time I take my laptop somewhere that has Internet connection, like a hotel, I have enormous trouble figuring out how to set it up. The hotels usually have instructions like basically, "plug in the cable and open your browser and you're done" but that never seems to work for me. I end up rooting through the network preferences, configuring new locations, and I can never even tell if the place is high speed ethernet or cable internet, so I usually try both the ethernet prefs and the VPN prefs, and either way I never know what to choose (TCP/IP, PPPoe, etc). Often I get to the point where the VPN icon shows it's connected, but my browser still won't go to any page. If this only happened once I'd write it off as a problem with the hotel server, but it is every time and many hotels, so clearly it's a Mac thing. Sometimes I call the hotel desk and they either tell me how easy it is if I just open my browser (tried already) or they say, "oh, you have a Mac, I don't know what to tell you." Sometimes after a lot of guesswork I do get connected, but by then I've changed so many things I can't retrace my steps next time. I guess this is the one area where Mac is NOT easier than PC. But I would really like to learn the proper procedure so that I'd be able to use my laptop when out of town without always spending hours experimenting. Is there no way the computer could automatically know what to do to connect? Can anyone here tell me the usual steps? (Wired only, I don't have wireless.) Thanks.

iBook G3, Mac OS X (10.3.x)

Posted on Feb 10, 2010 5:05 AM

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Answer 1

Euchre

Level 4

1,275 points

Feb 10, 2010 9:44 AM in response to cmilwright

If the hotel tells you that all you have to do is plug in to their Ethernet port provided in the hotel room, then plug into the Ethernet port on your computer, your default network settings on the Mac will work. If you've got other special firewall software installed, or have a lot of changes made to your network settings, it may cause problems. In System Preferences > Network your Location in the dropdown selection at top should be set to Automatic. If you've got a bunch of other locations you've created in the past in various attempts to connect, you should choose Edit Locations from the dropdown and remove those leaving the Automatic. You should not alter the settings for Automatic, and leave it as your simple fallback.

Be sure you are using the Ethernet port on your Mac. Your iBook G3 probably has a dial up modem as well as an Ethernet port. The dial up modem port uses a standard phone cable connection, and the Ethernet port uses a similar looking but larger connection. If you are connected properly to the Ethernet port, in System Preferences > Network you should see a green dot to the left of the Built-in Ethernet entry in your device list.

The only special step I've seen at most hotels is that once you connect and open your browser, it will often direct you to a 'gateway page' no matter what page you try to load. On this page will be a policy statement and some form of button or link you must click to agree to the terms of the policy to use their network connection. Once you have done this you can then use the connection.

Ethernet networking uses open standards that all platforms can be configured to use. Using the Automatic location in the Network preferences uses the simplest, standard method of connection of these open networking standards.

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Answer 2

cmilwright Author

Level 1

5 points

Feb 10, 2010 10:36 AM in response to Euchre

Euchre wrote:
If the hotel tells you that all you have to do is plug in to their Ethernet port provided in the hotel room, then plug into the Ethernet port on your computer, your default network settings on the Mac will work.

Nope, it doesn't. Ever. Anywhere. Not on first try, I mean. Like I mentioned, it's not that I can never connect, it's just that it never does it automatically or intuitively. I do not have any firewall programs other than the one which comes in the OS. For sure I am using the right port and cable. But, both DSL and cablemodem high-speed access use this cable, and I have learned that the network settings have to be different for each of those. I usually only figure out which one the hotel in question uses after experimenting. What I am especially curious about is why I would get the icon showing that I am connected, and still not be able to do anything with the browser. Usually if I eventually achieve success, I experience what you describe, ie a message from the hotel directing me to their site first. But if I am unable to get to that point, it's usually when I am supposedly "connected" but am getting nowhere. I've tried many different browsers too, so that can't be it.

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Answer 3

Euchre

Level 4

1,275 points

Feb 10, 2010 11:05 AM in response to cmilwright

A connection shared via a router, regardless of cable or DSL, uses DHCP to connect in such a 'plug and play' setup. There are no special differences between the two when shared in such a fashion. The only differences between the two connection types are upstream between the modem and router devices, and devices connected downstream using DHCP will see no difference.

To test if your Automatic location settings have been in some way altered, create a new Administrator user and using the default Automatic connection settings attempt the connection to the network.

If you show a green connection status to the network but can not load any web pages of your choice, and do not get the hotel's gateway page, ask what the URL is of the gateway page. Loading this manually will avoid any special redirects used to force you to the gateway page that your configuration may be preventing.

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Answer 4

cmilwright Author

Level 1

5 points

Feb 10, 2010 11:34 AM in response to Euchre

Euchre wrote:
If you show a green connection status to the network but can not load any web pages of your choice, and do not get the hotel's gateway page, ask what the URL is of the gateway page. Loading this manually will avoid any special redirects used to force you to the gateway page that your configuration may be preventing.

I actually tried this the last time I was in a hotel, and even typing in http://www.sheraton.com my browser just gave me the blank "page can't be found" page. I guess I will try your 'new administrator' suggestion next time I go somewhere. Meanwhile, can you explain to me what is the difference between the two network connection icons you can get on the top right of the screen: one is a dashed line between two angle brackets, and the other looks like a big tab or the end of a tie-wrap something. I have experienced that the first one refers to DSL high speed and the other one refers to cablemodem connection, but if you say they do not differentiate, then what do those mean? Thank you.

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Answer 5

Euchre

Level 4

1,275 points

Feb 10, 2010 11:24 PM in response to cmilwright

I believe the items you are referring to are status for PPPoE and possibly the dial up modem status. A screenshot of what you mean could help, as I'm not sure about the 'tie wrap' one. I know the PPPoE status is not enabled by default, so if that's always showing it's an indication your Automatic location network settings are not fully default.

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Answer 6

cmilwright Author

Level 1

5 points

Feb 12, 2010 2:51 PM in response to Euchre

It's awfully difficult to show you a screen shot, but I have managed put an image on my friend's club website if it worked you should be able to link directly to it here
http://www.rallysport.on.ca/index.php?fuseaction=site.details&id=469

As you see,looking from the right there is the one for telephone modem, the angle bracket one for DSL as I understand it,and then the farthest left one is the one which reminds me of the end of a tie wrap. Don't know what the difference is between those last two but some hotels one works and some hotels, the other one does. I have all of them preferenced to show in the header so I can keep track of which one I need to command to "connect" and which one successfully does connect.

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Answer 7

Feb 12, 2010 4:44 PM in response to cmilwright

.

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Answer 8

rccharles

Level 6

13,037 points

Feb 14, 2010 10:48 AM in response to cmilwright

sometimes the mac doesn't read the dns address correctly. I suggest you fill in the dns address your ISP uses.

BDAqua suggests in a post:

You can use OpenDNS for looking up web addresses.

208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

https://www.opendns.com/homenetwork/start/device/apple-osx-tiger
(Please note that you do not need to a joint Open DNS to use it.)

--------

Seems like you are not getting the DNS address or addresses.

apple > system preferences > network

Double click on network connection you are using.

Pick the TCP/IP tab.

Verify that you have a DNS Server. If you do not, look on your windows machine and see what the net address is. You can also pick using DHCF and still enter you DNS server address.

----

You can use
harddrive > applications > utilities > network utility
to diagnose the situation.

You can ping google.com. Result:
Ping has started ...

PING google.com (64.233.167.99): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 64.233.167.99: icmp_seq=0 ttl=244 time=215.362 ms
64 bytes from 64.233.167.99: icmp_seq=1 ttl=244 time=279.597 ms
64 bytes from 64.233.167.99: icmp_seq=2 ttl=244 time=189.747 ms
64 bytes from 64.233.167.99: icmp_seq=3 ttl=244 time=250.657 ms
64 bytes from 64.233.167.99: icmp_seq=4 ttl=244 time=183.232 ms
64 bytes from 64.233.167.99: icmp_seq=5 ttl=244 time=243.753 ms
64 bytes from 64.233.167.99: icmp_seq=6 ttl=244 time=173.108 ms
64 bytes from 64.233.167.99: icmp_seq=7 ttl=244 time=230.239 ms
64 bytes from 64.233.167.99: icmp_seq=8 ttl=244 time=180.639 ms
64 bytes from 64.233.167.99: icmp_seq=9 ttl=244 time=232.177 ms

--- google.com ping statistics ---
10 packets transmitted, 10 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 173.108/217.851/279.597/33.615 ms

If that does work, try pinging 64.233.167.99 Result:

Ping has started ...

PING 64.233.167.99 (64.233.167.99): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 64.233.167.99: icmp_seq=0 ttl=244 time=189.655 ms
64 bytes from 64.233.167.99: icmp_seq=1 ttl=244 time=213.471 ms
64 bytes from 64.233.167.99: icmp_seq=2 ttl=244 time=257.873 ms
64 bytes from 64.233.167.99: icmp_seq=3 ttl=244 time=172.745 ms
64 bytes from 64.233.167.99: icmp_seq=4 ttl=244 time=226.723 ms
64 bytes from 64.233.167.99: icmp_seq=5 ttl=244 time=171.883 ms
64 bytes from 64.233.167.99: icmp_seq=6 ttl=244 time=260.308 ms
64 bytes from 64.233.167.99: icmp_seq=7 ttl=244 time=172.963 ms
64 bytes from 64.233.167.99: icmp_seq=8 ttl=244 time=198.840 ms
64 bytes from 64.233.167.99: icmp_seq=9 ttl=244 time=181.215 ms

--- 64.233.167.99 ping statistics ---
10 packets transmitted, 10 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 171.883/204.568/260.308/32.247 ms

If pinging 17.254.3.183 works but pinging Google.com doesn't. You have a bad DNS Server address.

----------

Another thing that you could try it is deleting the preference files for networking. Mac OS will regenerate these files. You would then need to reconfigure your network settings.

The list of files comes from Mac OS X 10.4 but I assume they are the same for 10.3.
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8185915#8185915

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10718694#10718694

------------

You can upload your photos / screen shoots to:
http://www.flickr.com/
it's free.

Robert

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Answer 9

cmilwright Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 21, 2010 2:58 AM in response to rccharles

Thank you everyone for your attempts to help. However I think I may have figured it out differently, and so I am posting in case this is ever a problem for someone else, so they can check this possibility out. After speaking with my home ISP, I believe that my DSL modem at home was set up to connect using PPPoE. Therefore my computer was also set up to connect this way. Hotels, though, mostly use TCP/IP protocol. So the computer has to be reset to uncheck the "connect using PPPoE" choice. My ISP reprogrammed my home modem to use TCP/IP; I unchecked the box and I can again connect at home. Next time I travel will prove if this was really the issue, but for now I am pretty convinced that it was. Hope that helps others.

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Answer 10

n-a100__

Level 1

5 points

Apr 25, 2010 8:13 AM in response to cmilwright

my router at home is set for PPPoE and my mac is set on TCP/IP

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