IPad connection to free WiFi hotspots

I noticed this as well when I was at JFK and Penn station recently. I think maybe you have to register or sign up in advance for these 'free wifi hotspots'. Certainly not an iPad issue.

Cheers,

Nick

In the UK, on East Coast mainline trains, when I connect to the onboard free wifi I get a Safari page come up asking for some details - name, email address, and to select a password. Until these are filled in you do not get internet access.

Many supposedly free wifis, met for the first time, do this. Thereafter the iPad or laptop should remember for future use, but might still need your email address and the previously selected password.

I was just at Denver airport and the Brooklyn Marriott. Both offered free wifi, but required an agreement to terms and conditions on a couple of pages. I couldn't get the T&C pages to load. Rather just got "can't connect" messages. The pages loaded just fine on our XP laptops.

I'm at DIA right now. I can connect to the free wifi with my iphone, but with the iPad, I get an immediate popup that says "can't connect to network".

That seems like an iPad issue to me.

To complicate matters further, there are also pay wall networks that the iPad can connect to - although I don't have the IPASS or whatever it is you need to log in.

I am replying to this topic in Panera store. It has free wi-fi. You have to agree to certain terms You just can't
sit there all day.

I have exactly the same problem, but it doesn't happen all of the time. I will successfully connect to a free wifi hotspot but as soon as I go onto safari, I get a 'connecting...' screen until it says, 'invalid argument'.

I also had the same problem with my iPod touch.

Running OS 3.2 on iPad
Running OS 3.1.2 on 2nd Gen iPod touch

Hope someone can help

"Connecting" to a free wifi spot is not the same as connecting to the internet through the free wifi spot. Many of these free wifi providers first want to know who you are by means of you filling in a browser registration page, giving your name and regular email address and choosing a password for subsequent log-ins.

Normally this registration process uses a Safari page which should come up automatically, soon after connection, but may not. This can leave you assuming a fault when none exists - until you are a registered customer with a valid password you will not get internet access. I also assume that each piece of equipment might need to go thru this process once.

mcbussacco wrote:
I am replying to this topic in Panera store. It has free wi-fi. You have to agree to certain terms You just can't
sit there all day.

Way back when, iphones could not connect to Panera's wifi. I don't remember now what would be on the screen when you tried, I believe it was some log in page that the phone couldn't access. My Apple laptop did not have this issue. Then some time later due either to an iphone update or some change on Panera's network the issue was resolved. So I'm assuming that some wifi spots will be a problem for the ipad until a future update.

I am having the same problem....accept that it's on my home network. I haven't been able to figure it out.

Same here - it's got to be an iPad issue, I can connect all right with my MBP, but cannot with the iPad.

One instance is my home network, where intermittently the message is "Wrong (WPA2) password" or "Can't connect to the network". I am now experiencing this on our guest office wifi: the MBP connects with no problem, the iPad cannot.

Sometimes, the free wifi login pagen runs on Flash, which is why it won't show up on the iPad. I've heard this is the case at McDonalds, though vie never tried it there so I can't be sure.

I cannot say for the office wifi, but my home network has no login page, just a pop up asking for a password. Can this be Flash ?

I connected to the free wifi in the coffee house and showed full bars but couldn't even get to the registration page where I register with them. Kept getting a "cannot connect to server" message. Others in the coffee house were happily computing away on their laptops.

I'm having similar issues too.

When I was on vacation recently at Phuket, I was attempting to login to the hotel's free wifi. As what Dan said, after selecting the SSID from the list of wifi spots; there is a Safari page that will require you to login with some credentials. Sometimes this takes a while, sometimes it is faster.

As I said, my recent trip, I am able to key in the username/password, but when I click on "connect" or "login"; nothing happens. Even when I wait for, like, 20 minutes to see if anything comes up; nothing.

Hence, I thought it might be an issue with the hotel's free wifi (note that at this point in time, both my iP4 and iP3GS have no issues logging on in the same way).

Just today, I tried logging into the free wifi at our community library, again the same thing happened. Both iPhones are able to log on. But iPad - after keying in username/password and clicking on "connect" results in nothing.

Any idea what might be the cause? I can logon to my home wifi (thank GOD!). But from time-to-time, I face the issue of the iPad telling me, "Unable to join [SSID]".

Is it likely a hard-ware issue?
Thanks.

Try it at your library with Autofill turned off.