Hotel Wi-Fi networks with iPad

Just to add to my previous post I did manage to get it working eventually but had to bodge the solution. I was lucky enough to have several other devices including an iphone that wee able to successfully connect and get to the browser logon screen. For some reason the ipad did not seem to get a valid ip address. So I looked at the ip config on the other devices and then manually entered an ip for the (valid) wifi connection (as high up in the range I could find to ensure it would not create a duplicte ip issue). Pointed the iPad to an external site... and bingo got the hotels broadband login screen. I have read elsewhere that there are some issues with dhcp and iPads. My thoughts here was that this is what caused my problem. The (somewhat bodged) manual setup allowed me to work but I think it is an issue with the (Cisco) dhcp server and the iPad's dhcp client. Its clearly not an issue on the iphone as it worked fine there. It begs the question... is the iPhone dhcp client a later release to the one shipped on the iPad?

hope this helps..... worked for me.

Don't worry. Steve jobs couldn't connect his iPhone to the wifi router today at WWDC. Of course all the apple fanboys will say it was the router. Funny they didn't replace their router before the show.

JimHdk wrote:

dubgiant90 wrote:
... Nobody could've foreseen the crazy new wifi technology embedded into the iPad that would only work with certain routers and certain networks.

The iPad uses the Broadcom BCM4329 chip for WiFi & Bluetooth communications. This is the same chip that is used in the current iPhone and iPod Touch. The BCM4329 implements WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n with very low power consumption. This same chip is used in many other devices. There is no "crazy new wifi technology" in the iPad. That's why most iPad users aren't having any WiFi problems.

In any event, some Hotel and other "free" WiFi services utilize web browser sign-on pages or terms-of-use agreement pages which must be gotten through to get internet access. This sort of thing is not a part of the WiFi standard and is a bit of a kludge. It is known that the Safari "Autofill" feature can interfere with some of these and turning it OFF may get around this. However, if there is something in this type of implementation which looks for a specific browser type (like Internet Explorer) or uses something not implemented on the iPad (e.g., Flash, Java, etc.) then the service may not work with the iPad.

I haven't had any problems with public WiFi hot spots with my iPad but, of course, I've only used a small fraction of them.

Notice the end of my post.

End sarcasm lol.. I was being sarcastic. I know the wifi is very basic technology in the iPad. Etresoft wanted to point out how its some new technology that companies need to update their gear for.

You have my sympathy. I have tried to use my iPad at quite a number of locations in US, UK and Italy over the last few weeks and have probably had a 75% success rate, however, when it wouldn't connect in hotels it was quite frustrating as my iPhone would connect.

The issue was outside of the hotels experience/ability to solve and I didn't have the time to solve it. My guess is that some settings somewhere were not allowing the iPad to connect. I hope that as iPads become more prevalent that these issues get resolved either by the network owners or Apple in the case of the known device/OS issue.

No one likes carrying a brick, even one that plays music and displays great photos 😉

I've been having the same issue with connecting to a hotel's wi-fi and could never get past their pop-up login screen but once or twice the past couple months. I read the post about turning off the auto-fill options and it worked first time. To test the theory, I rebooted the ipad with the options on and had the same error. I then turned the auto-fill option off and it worked immediately. Odd, but it fixed the problem.

I was at a hospital clinic today that had a wireless network with ssid GUEST. I tried to connect and got a login webpage. I tried the obvious guest/password but nothing seemed to happen. I put in some gibberish and got login incorrect, so I think I guessed right, but still nothing happened. Didn't want to ask b.c everyone was real busy and I figured they had better things to do than help me test my iPad.

It was a cisco network fwiw. What should I try next time?

dearlt wrote:
I was at a hospital clinic today that had a wireless network with ssid GUEST. I tried to connect and got a login webpage. I tried the obvious guest/password but nothing seemed to happen. I put in some gibberish and got login incorrect, so I think I guessed right, but still nothing happened. Didn't want to ask b.c everyone was real busy and I figured they had better things to do than help me test my iPad.

It was a cisco network fwiw. What should I try next time?

Since the internet service has a login screen turn off the Settings > Safari > Autofill option. This has been known to cause problems with sign-on on some of these services. You might also want to check to see if your user-id/password guess is correct.

OK guys. I am a HUGE fan of Apple products. Own too many to count. As for the Wifi problems... I can confirm. I spent 7 hours at the Denver airport yesterday trying to get online after having just told my boss how much I love my Ipad. After trying everything that I could think of, I went to the airport office and told them about my problem logging on. The nice lady asked me how old my laptop was. When I told her that it was a brand new Ipad, she said that "they don't seem to like our network". I spent the next several hours looking for someone else with an Ipad that may have found a solution. No luck. I called home and asked my daughter to google a solution. Still no luck. Guess I'm back to carrying my lousy laptop around again. BTW The Ipad worked flawlessly at that hotel as it does at home. I'm not sure where the problem lies, but please fix it!

Ugh... What nonsense... What is it with fanbois that they can't discuss these issues without getting emotionally charged? If you can help the guy, post, if not KEEP QUIET! Honestly... I've got an iPhone and ipad and love them both. Apple makes really cool gadgets but they and their fan base are extremely annoying and just plain weird. I find myself rooting for someone to come up with a device for android that comes close to the iPhone in user experience so i can distance myself.

Anyway, to the topic at hand, I'm staying at an extended stay America and had the exact opposite problem as the original poster. My iPad would connect but not my 3GS. I called the customer service number on the card and they gave me a work around. For some reason the login screen wasn't popping up in safari (I made sure autofill was off as well as trying other safari options). Since my iphone was connecting to the network but not logging in (ie it had an ip address, etc) the guy was able to see it on the network and give it access from his end. Working fine now.

So, unfortunately my solution was 'call customer support' but maybe it will help to know that it should be possible to manually give your device access as long as it has been assigned an ip address by the network.

And it certainly seems to me that this is safari/ios4's problem and the (much maligned) hotel customer service tech was able to provide me with a workaround for Apple's malfunctioning device. That's just my objective opinion with no particular emotional attachment.

@VirtualCappy: Your post is "emotionally charged." Pot-kettle, eh? Calling people "fanbois" is the most prevalent emotional expression I see in any Apple-related discussion. People's apparently uncontrollable jealousy of Apple is transparent. That's emotional in my book, and far from "objective."

I've had problems with hotel WiFis in Finland and UK.
Eventually finding this thread and swithing Safari AutoFill off everything's working fine.

I wish there was another way of making the lovely pad to work with Hotel networks, though.

As an airline pilot, I get to stay in hotels all over the world. Simply put, the iPad won't connect when connection involves a pop-up screen. The iPhone 4 connects immediately. Turning off auto fill doesn't help. Manually changing ip address, DNS, clearing caches, etc and resetting networks doesn't fix the problem. I've been unable to connect in Panama, Caracas, Canada, Atlanta, Denver, San Francisco. This appears to be a software problem. Will the November upgrade fix it? I sure hope so. To suggest the hotels have a problem is absurd. It's an Apple problem.

Chris, I'm with ya on this one. As a former upper level Apple technical support rep I can say that I feel like I have control of my home network. What I do not have control of is my iPad's wifi reception. No other device on my network ever has issues and more often than not I will see a "Connecting" box while sitting in plain view of my router.
I'm also a fan of the blue shirt conspiracy, having had several posts deleted seconds after being negatively responded to by someone in this thread.

I know the thread is old, just scanning for solutions!

I found this thread after having a similar problem-- solid wifi in hotel room (my PC's connected) but iPad couldn't. I checked the safari autofill suggestion, but autofill was already turned off.

On a lark I decided to allow pop ups-- they were shut off in safari settings-- and that did the trick! The browser was killing the pop up authentication window. Give it a shot- hope it helps

Thanks, Lady Madonna- I was hoping that you'd post back and let us know if disabling the autofill worked for you, too.

The rest of you guys- it's a tech support board! Just let us know what works and what doesn't.