How to connect in hotel with wireless internet service

Posts: 2

I don't know if this info has been shared previously on this forum, but I'm so excited about this solution I just had to share it.

I travel a lot, and always want to use my internet phone in the hotel. I carry the small Linksys Router WRT54GC, which works sometimes when there is a wired connection. But most of the time it will not connect because there's no way past the hotel's "internet registration". Yes, you can futs around and use MAC cloning after registering your laptop, but it doesn't always work. And if the hotel has WIFI service only, forget about connecting your internet phone. And softphone is not the workaround at all.

Then the light went on, I found the solution Very Happy

Windows has had an "Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)" feature built in since Win98 version. And in recent years I'd forgotten about it.

So I went to the WinXP Internet configuration panel and set up my laptop with the WIFI connection as the ICS connection to the internet and the built-in Ethernet wired connection as the shared connection. I cabled the Vonage adaptor (I've got the old Cisco ATA 186) to that port. After rebooting with this configuration change and realizing I had to disable my Zonealarm Firewall (WinXP Firewall can be left on!), it worked!

Here's the "wiring" diagram:

Internet <--> Laptop (via WIFI) <--> Vonage adaptor (via Ethernet cable) <--> 900Mhz wireless phone

But what if the hotel provides a wired-only connection?

I now carry a PC Card Ethernet adaptor, which gives the laptop two wired connections. I then configure the PC Card adaptor to be the ICS port, and the built in port as the shared connection.

Only problem is making sure your not downloading or uploading a big file and trying to use the phone at the same time, that stretches the WIFI's or the laptop's sharing abilities.

I hope this helps all of you who have fought to make this 21st century communication link work for you on the road.

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: Feb 09, 2010 Posts: 7

I have a mac computor and turn on internet sharing. I plug in another computer to see if the internet sharing is working and it is. Then I plug in the Vonage modem the internet light is on and solid but will not work. Also if you plug into the back of the modem I also do not have internet.It is a motorola vt 2442. Any thought or help is appreciated. thx

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: Feb 09, 2010 Posts: 7

here is a little more info
my scenario: hotel room wireless internet and I want to use my Vonage.
mac computer internet sharing on. check to see if it is working?It is via another computer. this other computer hooks up to the internet immediatley and fast. unplug this computer and plug in modem internet light is on but doesn't work. unplug Vonage plug second computer back in to get IP.plug Vonage back in type 192.168.15.1 enter page goto set up change from dhcp to static put in the ip when I go to save I get an error that says invalid sub net mask which is 255.255.255.0 I have been on the phone with tech support for around 3 hours and they gave up he was a nice guy but he had no answers for the error.Is there a default ip that mac uses as opposed to the actual IP that does not seem to work? If anybody has any ideas I will try them. I am sure if we figure this out there are many other users out there the solution would help. It seems there is wifi everywhere now. thx for any and all info.