As I travel I find more hotels are offering wired broadband in the room, often free.
Fine for a laptop, but how does poor little XDA make use of this? I thought of carrying a wireless router modem in my suitcase (some are fairly light), but there must be a simpler solution??? Any suggestions?
True, you can sometimes find a wi-fi point "free" but only in the more civilized parts of the world.
I was also thinking of carrying my old Psion infa red battery modem to connect to hotel phone line at 56k, but that's a bit passe.
Thanks.
hotel broadband observations
I find that if I stay at the more up-market brands like Hilton or Sheraton or Mariott they nickel and dime you for everything, typically broadband will set you back ten bucks a day.
However if you stay at their slightly less expensive partner brands like Fairfield, Courtyard or Hampton inn, you get the points for the up-market places (or airline miles) and the internet tends to be free.
At least in the US hotels are pretty densely concentrated around freeway interchanges or business districts and sometimes the wifi signal from one hotel bleeds over into another. Its been interesting to see how this has evolved over time. The conversation would often go like this...
Customer - "Do you offer broadband wifi here at Brand X?"
Clerk - "Well, WE don't offer it but Brand Y next door does. Typically if I put you in a room on that side you'll probably be able to pick up their signal just fine." Translated, the connection is going to be very weak and you're going to say the heck with it and dial up - or try to use GPRS/EDGE and thats not typically going to work very well because in-building coverage with GSM1900 is lousy unless you happen to be near a window on the side of the building closest to the cell site. (It's even lousier because of the Wizard's antenna design!!)
The upshot of this has been the hotel chains with broadband have caught on that their neighbors will leech off of them, thus they have passwords that change every week. They don't do encryption because that would make the poor front desk clerks bleed out their ears, its more of just getting your MAC address on an access list in some manner. Broadband is included but they keep the customers next door at Brand X from coming along for the ride by giving their customers a little card with a sticker and that week's password. At authentication, which naturally only works best with IE because apparently the developers haven't heard of bloody firefox in most cases... it appears that your MAC address is stored for 24 hours and then you don't have to authenticate again until about the same time the next day. Some of them appear to be far more sophisticated, don't require a password, and appear to triangulate your room location in some manner - I'm totally guessing but I bet the access server polls all of the access points to see which ones can see traffic from your MAC address but that's just speculation.
In my experience my T-Mobile MDA (HTC wizard) will sometimes authenticate to hotel networks and sometimes not. It's usually not a signal strength problem, its that the IE browser thats installed in Windows Mobile 5 isn't quite up to running whatever script is authenticating you. If the PDA is all you carry, you're totally dependent on the web page the hotel uses for authentication happening to work correctly on your handheld device. If you're at one of the up-market places that nickel and dime you for everything you're still going to have to authenticate to their internet server over a wired connection and that may or may not work on your handheld. It also may or may not work over the NAT'd connection you get with a wireless router and if you need tech support you better be pretty darned able to B.S. them into thinking you're using a PC with Windows XP. It also completely varies from property to property, don't expect consistency in this area across one particular brand of hotel.
If you only carry a handheld 802.11x device and a wireless router, you better set a strong password and encryption key on it lest some other hotel guest changes your network name to "owned" and/or they download something they ought not to and the data trail leads back to your room's port.
When I arrive at a hotel and plug in or connect my 802.11x through my laptop, I hold my nose and launch IE until I get put on the access list, then I can typically launch firefox and kill the IE pig out of memory.
I wanted to see if you guys have tried this. This is with your home IP address, it won't be quite exact with a cell phone.
I tried this tool, and I think it's great. It's just about 5 blocks off from my actual address on the map. I mean, I think 5 blocks off is pretty accurate. It's less than a mile.
Is it as accurate for you too?
http://www.zabasearch.com/zabainfo/ip_search.php
(I live in NYC, and the cell IP is in Texas!! So try your home IP).
thanks.
I'm in Nampa, ID and it says Boise, ID, which is about 25 mile away.
Hrshycro said:
I'm in Nampa, ID and it says Boise, ID, which is about 25 mile away.
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Not so great in that case. I tested it also from a corporate ip, and it didn't work so well. Maybe it was a proxy what it traced.
Apparently, in your case it means the 2 cities are being served by the same cable or dsl company, and that they share the same range of ip addresses. Or a whole subnet from 000.xxx to 255.xxx.
Probably the result should indicate the possible locations, or a wider approximate region, instead of pinpointing an exact latitude and the longitude.
Hrshycro said:
I'm in Nampa, ID and it says Boise, ID, which is about 25 mile away.
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Well you at least got 25miles off, it's off for me by close to half the world. I'm in Florida, and it says Japan.
Mapping IP addresses via IP isn't reliable to say the least. Especially when such a large portion of America uses a Dynamic IP adresses not to mention sometimes you'll simply get their service provider instead of the individual.
Doesn't work at all for me. Thankfully.
When I input my ip address all the fields return blank.
I know that this thread will probably be over in approximately 3 posts, but I figured this was the place to ask to get a good answer.
I am part of staff for a site that uses my IP to enable staff functions. These functions are set to the IP I'm on. However, it never works considering my IP constantly changes when I'm on the T-Mobile network, and I do not have access to wifi. Is there any possible way at all, to be able to make this work, either from my N1, or on my PC using my N1 as a 3G hotspot? I'm not all that knowledgeable about networking, but I'm thinking there has to be some possible way to make this work somehow. Maybe I'm wrong and it is one of the impossible things to do on a cell network.
Thanks for any help.
how often does it change ? is the running at home or the pc u are tethering with it ? are you using a 3g network service for a server
Every couple minutes at least. One minute it's for example, something like 208.54.27.50 and in a matter of 5 minutes the last two digits could be changed. I use the 3G hotspot at home and there's no difference from that and using the phone's browser itself. I do not use T-Mobile 3G to operate any servers.
If it is via your provider you have no control over it changing as they assign you a dynamic IP. If you were at home you could set it to a static local IP (Over WiFi) but outside your LAN on T-Mobile's WAN you have no control over DHCP
All I use for internet access on the go and at home is the 3G hotspot that I get from my phone. Would I need an actual Wifi connection from an ISP other than T-Mobile to set it to a static local IP?
looks like that just cant be done.. either ur site changes ur auth to id pw based one(atleast in ur case)
or ..
if its a job of just checking somthing, u can find a friend or family member with a 24/7 online pc(with a a static ip) and just do the job thru a remote desktop connection
All right guys. Thanks. Very much appreciate your thoughts and for not flaming me due to an obvious answer. Thank you again.
This is driving me insane!
When I have WiFi enabled at the office, my Samsung Galaxy Note (stock ICS, rooted) constantly receives incoming data and I haven't got a clue which setting, app or service is causing this.
SystemPanel registers a nonstop stream of incoming traffic at 8 to 10 Kbps.
TrafficStats shows an accumulation of Received data under Total WiFi, but can't seem to link it a particular app or service: after resetting the data, no processes appear but the incoming data keeps on growing.
All sync options are off, I've tried to kill every running app or service (one by one, all at once), I've tried to block all traffic using Droidwall. As soon as WiFi is enabled, the incoming stream is unstoppable. When switching to 3G, there's no incoming traffic.
But to make matters even more mysterious, I do not have this problem with my WiFi connection at home.
It only occurs at the office, only on WiFi and (as far as I know) only on my phone.
Any ideas?
This is simply because your wifi antenna still "hears" the data going trough the wireless network on wich you are connecter. Event if your phone doesn't asks for any data at the moment the traffic there is on the network will still be counted by the wifi chip on your phone.
It will be the same on any public network or if you have another phone or a computer connecter on the same wireless router and generating traffic.
Thanks for replying, John!
That sounds very plausible, but then I still have to figure out why only my phone is registering this traffic - maybe it's an ICS thing or brand specific?
And I'll try to 'reproduce' it at home by connecting a laptop at the same time.
I think that the above is correct. That may be default behavior.
Sent from my XT862 using xda app-developers app
Well, I've tried to connect several devices at once on my home WiFi network, but it did not reproduce the incoming traffic problem I experience at work.
There were a few incoming bytes registered, not nearly as much as the constant stream of 10 Kbps at the office network...
Your works wifi may be set up like that. Who Knows?
Sent from my XT862 using xda app-developers app
MrObvious said:
Your works wifi may be set up like that. Who Knows?
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Well, our it-department certainly does not.
You're probably right that this is normal behavior. I'll just have to figure out which drains less battery under these circumstances, WiFi or 3G. Thanks anyway for replying.
I'm on the mobile app, but if you have GSM then just switch to 2g until you use it.
Sent from my xt862 using xda app-developers app
Djezpur said:
Well, I've tried to connect several devices at once on my home WiFi network, but it did not reproduce the incoming traffic problem I experience at work.
There were a few incoming bytes registered, not nearly as much as the constant stream of 10 Kbps at the office network...
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Click to collapse
About this, it is simply that at your office there is traffic on the network (download/upload) while at home simply having devices connected doesn't generate traffic or almost none. Start several dl on several devices (phone laptop) (guess 2-3 is enough, maybe even one but not sure, not en expert after all ) then you should notice signifficant traffic on your phone, I guess!
So interesting I find this thread because I have the exact same problem!!!!
How I noticed it...when I am at home I drop 1% battery on Wifi per hour. 10hours = 10% (sometimes less).
I go to work on the Wifi, I DONT USE ANYTHING ON THE PHONE and the battery is DRAINING LIKE CRAZY!!! 5%/h or more!!!
( I am in airplane mode in both place)
So I was thinking, WTF with this work wifi, i am not doing anything at all on it. Then I look at my wifi icon I have a constant RECEIVE icon. And I bet my phone does not go to sleep or something.
So why in the world my work wifi is draining my battery and the one at home is not. I will check tonight but I dont think I have traffic like this. I am registering 5-6kbytes/s for nothing. The explanation given above is hands-waving. I do not agree with it fully. YEs sure there are several pings and beacon emitted back and forth but i do not think it is enough to cause 5-6kbytes/sec . The wifi is not in Monitor mode and it only receives the packets destined to my phone.
This is madness!!!! BTW When I had a different kernel on back on ICS this behavior stopped. I will try to monitor again.
kalinusa said:
So interesting I find this thread because I have the exact same problem!!!!
(...)
This is madness!!!! BTW When I had a different kernel on back on ICS this behavior stopped. I will try to monitor again.
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Hey kalinusa, did you find a solution to this problem?
I'm currently on the SpeedMod kernel, but that does not seem to make a difference to the 'office WiFi behavior' (so I keep my phone on mobile data).
I don't want to speak out of my ass, because I haven't a clue how the app works.
As far as I can guess SSH tunnel may help you. I would hope someone else could tell me I'm right, but I'm probably wrong.
I have had this same problem with two of my devices. The first is a Samsung Captivate with the last AOKP ICS build. The second is a Google Nexus 7 with AOKP's first Jelly Bean build (it happened when I had stock as well).
This only happens when I'm connected to WiFi at my university. The down arrow on the WiFi icon is ALWAYS on and it drains the battery. At home, I don't have these problems.
I emailed my university's IT department but I'm not sure if there's anything they can do. Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks.
I have exactly the same problem, but I think I found the reason which is causing it. I think that some of the routers are capable of the multicast over the wifi and then we can get a constant wifi traffic. I tested it at home, where I have enabled multicast over wifi and my phone wifi receiving the data all the time, even if it is in sleep. Now I'm in the office where we do not have such capable router with multicast over wifi and my phone wifi behavior is as expected. When I will be at home I will test it again with my router and with disabled multicast over wifi and hopefully it will solve this issue.
danielo said:
I have exactly the same problem, but I think I found the reason which is causing it. I think that some of the routers are capable of the multicast over the wifi and then we can get a constant wifi traffic. I tested it at home, where I have enabled multicast over wifi and my phone wifi receiving the data all the time, even if it is in sleep. Now I'm in the office where we do not have such capable router with multicast over wifi and my phone wifi behavior is as expected. When I will be at home I will test it again with my router and with disabled multicast over wifi and hopefully it will solve this issue.
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More than multicasts it could be broadcasts, what are you reaceiving. For example if you don't use WINS server in Windows domain, all computers use broadcast to get IP address for a computer name (if you dont use DNS name, but that's another story). At home, where aren't many computers, there are very few broadcasts. But somewhere, where a large amount of computers is on the same network (not splitted to broadcast domais), number of broadcasts would dramatically increase
btw. if you connect a PC to the same network as your phone and stop ALL running applications (mainly instant messangers, web browsers, e-mail clients) you should see the same network bandwidth in use as on your cell phone.
More than multicasts it could be broadcasts, what are you reaceiving. For example if you don't use WINS server in Windows domain, all computers use broadcast to get IP address for a computer name (if you dont use DNS name, but that's another story). At home, where aren't many computers, there are very few broadcasts. But somewhere, where a large amount of computers is on the same network (not splitted to broadcast domais), number of broadcasts would dramatically increase
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Interesting. Roughly how many devices would need to be on the same network, to see that kind of traffic load?
-- Sent from my TouchPad using Communities
post-mortem said:
Interesting. Roughly how many devices would need to be on the same network, to see that kind of traffic load?
-- Sent from my TouchPad using Communities
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It depends on what you consier as network load. If you start a network monitor like Wireshark or MS Network monitor and even if there is one computer on the network, you wil see "some" traffic (from time to time a few network packets). To generate constant network load, you'll need a few dozens of computers. And it always depends on how the network is designed and what applications the computers run. If all computers connect to a server, the network load will be a lot lower than if the computers share resources among them.
Or you can design your network in such way, that you divide computers into segments, where computers can communicate only with computers in its segment (or with some distant servers). This way the network load will dramatically decrease, as computers from different segments would not interfere.
I currently only have one computer connected to my home network atm via wifi, and it keeps a constant broadcast going to my phone for some unknown reason. I thought it was my dlna server, so I shut that off, and it is still broadcasting _something_... Its causing quite a battery drain, and unfortunately I cant seem to find the root of the issue. I've trolled through my router settings -- multicasting isnt on -- so Im at a loss. =\
Spz0 said:
I currently only have one computer connected to my home network atm via wifi, and it keeps a constant broadcast going to my phone for some unknown reason. I thought it was my dlna server, so I shut that off, and it is still broadcasting _something_... Its causing quite a battery drain, and unfortunately I cant seem to find the root of the issue. I've trolled through my router settings -- multicasting isnt on -- so Im at a loss. =\
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It can be caused also with the Media servers which runs on PC, also DHCP etc. It is not easy to eliminate all broadcast traffic and sadly our phones react at all that multicast packets.
Hi,
I have a 100Mbps connection with my internet provider and a D-Link DSL-6740U router. I'm able to get around 50Mbps with our laptop and around 70Mbps with my wife's iPhone 7.
I noticed that with my OnePlus 3 I'm getting a miserable 4Mbps on my home WiFi!! The antenna is fine, I get around 90Mbps with the same device at work.. I also checked and I get the same speed with my old Nexus 5.
I've read somewhere that changing the channel in the router settings might help but it didn't.. (I've tried 7 and 11 according to the source).
Any ideas? I'm kind of lost here and I'm pretty sure this is fixable, no way my Android devices are doomed to slow connections.
Thanks in advance!
Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk
you could check the router setting at your work. ask the i.t.
yosifun said:
Hi,
I have a 100Mbps connection with my internet provider and a D-Link DSL-6740U router. I'm able to get around 50Mbps with our laptop and around 70Mbps with my wife's iPhone 7.
I noticed that with my OnePlus 3 I'm getting a miserable 4Mbps on my home WiFi!! The antenna is fine, I get around 90Mbps with the same device at work.. I also checked and I get the same speed with my old Nexus 5.
I've read somewhere that changing the channel in the router settings might help but it didn't.. (I've tried 7 and 11 according to the source).
Any ideas? I'm kind of lost here and I'm pretty sure this is fixable, no way my Android devices are doomed to slow connections.
Thanks in advance!
Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Always keep in mind that advertising of speed always has the term "Up To" within them.
Broadband to PC that's directly connected is capable of up to 100 Mbps.
Broadband to PC that's connected to WiFi is capable of up to 50 Mbps.
Androids are different, the hardware is not as solid as the PCs. Though they capable of up to 50 Mbps, it rarely ever happens due to an Androids limitation.
Also, the Android typically provides the actual measured connection speed whereas the PCs (direct and WiFi) will only provide that "Up To" unmeasured connection.
There's more to it and the above is a very abridged explanation since It's hard to explain via text but, i hope i had explained it okay.
"Live Long and Prosper..."
~Ambassador S'chn T'gai Spock
Sent via Communicator [D2VZW] from the Bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise [NCC-1701].