[brettcamp]

I've been holding off buying my wife Apple's USB ethernet adapter for her MacBook because she doesn't ever use ethernet except for hotel internet connections. We assumed that even if the hotel didn't have wireless internet, she could just plug the hotel room's wired ethernet cable into her trusty Airport Express and have a de facto ethernet port. However, when she tried to sign onto the hotel's network when connected in that way, the sign in page never came up. But when I plugged the hotel ethernet cable directly into my MacBook's ethernet port, the sign in page instantly appeared. After I signed us on, both my wife and I were able to browse wirelessly using the AE network, she on her MBA, me on my MB.
So does anyone know if this is a common problem -- that you have to sign on to many hotel networks only with a wired connection? Or is there some trick for doing so via the AE connection? I know it's only $30 for the adapter, but it's one more thing to carry along with power adapter, CD drive, USB hub, USB hard drive, USB flash drive, portable speakers, et al. Thanks for any advice....

[ibook_steve]

This is more of a networking thread, so I've moved it to from the Notebook forum to Networking.

The AE is basically just a wireless router. As long as it is set up correctly, you should be able to get to the hotel sign-in page. If the hotel doesn't like the fact that you are using Network Address Translation (NAT) and DHCP to give an IP address to your machine(s), you can simply turn these off in Airport Utility to basically turn the AE into a wireless bridge.

Steve

[Cold Warrior]

Like Steve said -- bridge mode all the way. I keep my airport express in bridge mode specifically for hotels.

Also, even if the hotel has wifi, I still use airport express to hook up to their ethernet. That way I get wifi but on my terms: encrypted.

[ghporter]

I was recently at an upscale hotel in Austin that had WiFi, but I could not for the life of me find an Ethernet jack anywhere in the room. Very strange, I thought. Plus they had something like four separate WiFi networks, and none was labeled "guest." It took some poking to figure out which was supposed to be used by guests and which were for the various business meetings and conventions going on there. I would dearly have liked to have the choice of wired or wireless.

If connectivity is a crucial part of your stay, it may be a good idea to contact the hotel ahead of time and find out just how they're set up. My inexpensive but small "extra wireless router" would have made it very comfortable for both me and my wife to surf and do research in between my meetings. As it was, the speed of the available network was quite variable, and it was something of a pain to stay connected at times.

(Yes, I told the management about it, and told the chain about it when they sent their email survey to me.)

[brettcamp]

Thanks so much to all of you for the quick responses! Networking and internet access have always utterly confused me once I start seeing terms like DHCP etc. I'll give bridge mode a shot, and if it doesn't work, maybe I'll just spring for the ethernet adapter.
So, just to clear (like I said, I'm easily confused), I go to Airport Utility => Internet => Internet Connection and at the bottom, under Connection Sharing, change the current Share a Public IP Address to Bridge Mode, right? Then I should be able to sign on and can just leave it in Bridge mode and my wife and I can happily surf wirelessly on our respective MacBooks. Do I need to do anything else?

I'm actually thinking of getting an Air myself in a year or two (whenever the solid state drives are affordable), so my wife and I could share it along with the CD drive that came bundled with her Air and our trusty old Airport Express.
And excellent idea to check with the hotel ahead of time -- I always forget to ask and then have to figure it all out. Fortunately, all this stuff is getting much easier nowadays, with wireless being nearly ubiquitous and hotel IT people familiar with Macs.
Thanks again for the help!

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

I was recently at an upscale hotel in Austin that had WiFi, but I could not for the life of me find an Ethernet jack anywhere in the room. Very strange, I thought.

That's not uncommon at all, especially for older hotels.

It's much easier and cheaper to retrofit the hotels using WLAN than putting an actual ethernet connection in each room.

-t

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

That's not uncommon at all, especially for older hotels.

It's much easier and cheaper to retrofit the hotels using WLAN than putting an actual ethernet connection in each room.

-t

Yeah, it was not a "new" building by any means-it's probably almost 30 years old. Nice building and all that, but not built with that sort of wiring in mind. Too bad they couldn't do better with their wireless coverage...