Hotel Room Configuration Help

Posts: 37 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Dec 02, 2003 Posts: 37

Hello,

I will be going on a business trip where I will have to work a lot from the room via the hotel's high speed Internet and my company's VPN. I also want to be able to use my ATA at the same time. Softphone is out of the question as my company's firewall does not allow the VPN through.

So, I am thinking I should have the same setup as I have at home - router connected to the Internet (wall jack or cable modem at home), and the PC and ATA connected to the router.

What I can't figure out is how I can make the router work with the hotel's network. When I plug my computer directly to the hotel's network, the computer gets setup via DHCP and I get automatically directed to a website when I open the browser to "unlock access". How would this work if a router is plugged in?

I am sure there are plenty of networking experts on this forum. Anyone has any ideas or experiences?

Thanks.

Posts: 35 · Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2004 7:13 am Post subject: Re: Hotel Room Configuration Help

username wrote:

What I can't figure out is how I can make the router work with the hotel's network. When I plug my computer directly to the hotel's network, the computer gets setup via DHCP and I get automatically directed to a website when I open the browser to "unlock access". How would this work if a router is plugged in?

Here is what I think would happen: Your router will use DHCP to assign itself an IP address from the hotels network. Then, when that is established, you can use your browser on your laptop. Your browser will try to open to its default page and instead should get that signup page.

I have used those hotel connections plenty of times, although never with a router... unless the hotel is blocking ports, it should work..... although I have a hypothetical question... what happens if there is more than one Vonage user in the hotel... the hotel probably has one main router with one main IP address to the outside.... How many Vonage boxes can one network accept? I'll start another thread with this one.

Posts: 37 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Dec 02, 2003 Posts: 37

Thanks AD8BC. Someone also suggested that I can connect the laptop first to do the sign up. Then I can have the router spoof the computer's MAC address.

I wonder what the setup would be if someone has multiple ATAs/MTAs in a house behind a router. (This would be the same setup as multiple people in the hotel using Vonage.)

Thanks.

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 03, 2005 Posts: 1

Been there done that was at a few hotels with some friends and brought my wireless router and paid for one internet connection and we all could use it. and it will redirect you throught the router to the pay page or whatever but i have never tried it with Vonage

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 04, 2005 Posts: 2

I am doing it now and it works great !! Very Happy

My setup is:

Hotel wall plug (thernet connection thru Springhill Suites / Marriott service provider)

My Linksys wireless router (WRT54GC - small compact unit)

I connect my laptop through this router using wireless.

Vonage Linksys rtp300 is connected to my router with a short cable.
$9 GE handset (Walmart) Handset is plugged into the Vonage router. It has callerid and minimal features.

The order of startup is important.
--- Plug in wireless router first, then power it up
--- Logon to Internet with laptop (any site). This gets you past the "permission" screen
--- Plug in the Vonage router, then power it up
--- Plug in the handset

I am very happy with the setup. Call quality is great and all Vonage features work just fine - I use SimulRing a lot.

Caution:
--- I started with a Motorola router and just would not allow voice calls (probably device defect)
--- No parameters were adjusted on the Vonage router at all -- all security and such is on the wireless router
--- I unplug everything when I leave the room for the day so that the hotel folks are not tempted to use the handset

The Linksys rtp300 router is huge - perhaps the tech guys at Vonage could work with Linksys to put the extra voice jacks on the compact WRT54GC and make us road warriors ecstatic.... (hint, smaller is better)

Posts: 3198 · Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2005 4:38 pm Post subject:

if it's that important to you, get a pap2 and have your service switched to it. it's tiny.

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 04, 2005 Posts: 2

Excellent - thanks Smile