Question - Wireless router w/ public access point

AtheriShadow

I have searched Google and various router features for an answer to this and found nothing useful, so I thought I'd ask here.

I normally connect to the internet through a public access point provided by my apartment complex. I have been wondering if it would be possible to get my own wireless router and have it connect to the public one and pass the signal on to me, rather than having to connect straight from my PC to the public access point. I would be able to put the personal router in the best signal location and I wouldn't mind the extra security.

Any help would be appreciated.

Apreche

There's no reason to do that. It will just slow you down. If you want the added security, just put software firewalls on your machine.

Omnutia

Just get a wireless repeater.

Mosquitoboy

(ignore this post)

Victor Frost

You could do what I did for a while. I used a wrt54g with hacked firmware to act as a bridge be tween me and an open network. It connected via wifi and I connected to it via cat5.

Linton

I have a similar-ish question. I'm living in university halls and can only connect to the internet through an ethernet cable into the wall. If I connected it to a router would I be able to get Wifi? Sorry if this is a stupid question.

Omnutia

Yes. We all start somewhere, don't worry.

Victor Frost

Be careful Linton, many universities prohibit connecting routers to the Ethernet ports in dorms; Some even expel students who do. Talk to the school IT guy first to be sure.

Lusankya

Be careful Linton, many universities prohibit connecting routers to the Ethernet ports in dorms; Some even expel students who do. Talk to the school IT guy first to be sure.

The best way around this is to turn off the SSID broadcast and filter out all but specified MAC addresses. Most schools ban routers because they don't want kids who know nothing about networks borking it up for everyone else; if you can prove that you know what you're doing, Computing Services usually has no problem with it.

EDIT: Linton, since you asked, you may not want to try hooking one up. If you're not 100% confident in your networking abilities, you shouldn't try. I don't mean to stifle your interest in learning more, but it's not a good idea to get in trouble with your school's housing and computing departments in the process.

AtheriShadow

Interesting new development on my end. That public router kicked off my computer and my girlfriend's computer for no apparent reason yesterday and now when I try to reconnect I get a "wireless association failed because windows did not receive any response" error although the access point shows at full strength in my list of networks.

A couple of the other public ones listed do the same thing except for a small personal router somewhere that I'm currently... borrowing. Unfortunately all the solutions I see on Google assume that I own both the PC and the router.

...

Have you contacted your apartment complex? What did they say?

AtheriShadow

You could do what I did for a while. I used a wrt54g with hacked firmware to act as a bridge be tween me and an open network. It connected via wifi and I connected to it via cat5.

That's actually pretty much what I was thinking of, but I'll look into it after the other problem is fixed.

Have you contacted your apartment complex? What did they say?

I did that this morning, in fact. It turns out that the utility tower nearby that holds the access point was struck by lightning, which also explains the horrible burning electronic smell that filled the air that day. Apparently it's functional enough to be detected but not communicated with. They gave a "whenever it's done" sort of answer about when they'd fix it.