Using UTStarcom to access hotspots that require a user name?

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Jun 03, 2006 Posts: 1

I just got the UTstarcom F1000 from Vonage and have been using it on my home wifi network, no problem. Here is the issue:

Vonage maes no secret that the phone will not work at hotspots that requre a password or credt card. As I am a business treveller, this eliminates about 90% of the hotels I have ever stayed in. I am happy to pay my hotel for acess or otherwise play by the rules, but it would be great to then use my wifi phone. If I use my laptop to log into my hotel's wifi network, is there a "hack" to then let me use my phone? My non-techie brain says I could wire an Apple Airport Express through my laptop to create a new, open hotspot. Is this possible? I really dont feel like finding a coffee shop or sitting in a cafe to make my calls while travelling. There must be some way around this. Thoughts?

Posts: 327 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Dec 13, 2005 Posts: 327

Yes - you can use a portable AP for this. I have used the Netgear WGR101, but others would likely work as well (I have seen reports that the Linksys travel AP is good but that the D-Link Mini does not work very well).

You can authenticate on your PC and then use Internet Connection Sharing to get to the AP. Alternately, if you are in a hotel that has wired LAN access, you can authenticate through the AP and let it give out addresses (giving you the added advantage of not needing to be near the LAN jack in the room with your PC).

The other solution that I have seen suggested is to clone the phone's MAC into your PC, which would then give the PC and the phone the same IP address from the router - that should work so long as ports don't overlap, but is clearly more of a "hack"