Mac Forum / General / Networking / November 2005

Hi all:

When I bring my Powerbook G4 (with original Airport card) to my college
campus, I run into major connectivity problems. The library has
multiple wireless access points, all with the same name. The idea is
that you'll connect to whichever signal is strongest at any given
location. But what I can see using iStumbler is that the signals keep
rising and dropping relative to each other -- sometimes one is
stronger, sometimes another. (Moving around the building doesn't help.)
So, my Powerbook keeps hopping between access points. Unfortunately,
every time this happens, I lose my IP address and my wireless
authentication. Then for several minutes all connections are refused
and I can't get to the authentication webpage and get back online. When
I finally get back on, soon I will hop access points again and it
starts all over.

The university insists their setup is fine. But one thing I notice is
that the access points don't have the same authentication screen, and
they show different servers when I browse the network. This leads me to
believe that even though they're named the same, they are actually
authenticating to two different network connections. Could that be the
problem? My school's IT Department insists that nothing is wrong, and
that "everyone else" has no difficulty. I'm skeptical.

Any thoughts? Please reply to the newsgroup or to:

ksimon                      ...
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