Connecting to School Hot-Spot

[sziklassy]

Let me start by saying that I am being a total noob right now. Maybe I'm out of practice, or maybe just tired from vet med classes... anyway here is my question.

I am a student at Iowa State University. They have a hotspot every direction I look, so I wanted to connect. Upon first loading the internet, it requests me to login (fine, no problem). It then wants me to supply a host name. The default name it gives is iphone.student.iastate.edu After hitting enter it says that my computer did not supply a host name, but that I may choose one below, but no matter what I enter "it lets me enter up to 14 characters before ".student.iastate.edu" it doesn't work. I am thinking it wants a unique pc name, and someone already has the default "iPhone" registered. I am also thinking that it wants my iPhone to actually be named this. I also tried entering the name of my iPhone (Bela's iPhone) but that didn't work. This is the name I gave it in iTunes, not sure if its the same. I have connected to their network on my Vista laptop and my girlfriend's macbook, so it's not that multiple computers don't work. The IT dept. says up to 10 devices per student, and I am well under 10. Thanks in advance for the help!

[bhz1]

Do you have to register the device with the schools IT dept? Just a wild idea, what about the MAC address? (wifi address in settings-general-About)

[sziklassy]

Do you have to register the device with the schools IT dept? Just a wild idea, what about the MAC address? (wifi address in settings-general-About)

I didn't have to with either my laptops (pc and mac). When I went to the IT dept. they said the issue was the naming of the phone. There is already someone registered with their phoned named "iPhone" and I need to rename it somehow, but have NO idea how :/

[bhz1]

Odd indeed. How about trying the phone's serial number or wifi address when it wants you to input a name since you already tried your iphone's name in itunes.

When you tried the name Bela's iPhone, maybe the sustem doesnt like the apostrophe? Maybe try just Bela, Belaiphone, something like that. It could be syntax related.

[sziklassy]

I also noticed today that when im connected to wifi on my router, my iphone comes up as "unknown" whereas the rest of my computers (all of which have names) come up with their appropriate names. Does anyone see a name for their iphone when they are logged onto their router? I am almost sure it's this problem.

[bhz1]

I have 3 iPhones in the house but can't recall how the show up I'm my router. I will check in the morning since I'm up in bed and don't want to struggle downstairs with my broken toe waking everyone up for some reason I can't log in with the iPhone. Might be confused on the login info.
You could be onto something. Have you looked at what is listed for your iphones name as shown at the top of the settings-general-about page? I just saw a post where someone said it had a different name than what shows up in iTunes. This guy said that name was the one showing up in bluetooth connections If yours is different then maybe that would be the name you need to use to connect on the wifi network.

Edit:
OK, I have 4 iPhones listed in my router. 2 of them are the old 1st gen iPhones, 2 are the new 3G iPhones. They are named as follows in the order in which they were originally added to the network:

iPhone
new-host
new-host-1
new-host-2

So my feeling is that the iPhone that is already "taken" on the network was the first one to have been added. Yours is probably new-host-? so you might try naming yours new-host-x where x is a number. i'd start at 1 and go up from there. Hopefully there aren't too many other iPhones on your school network.

I do have the option of renaming my iPhone's network name but I have to do that in my router which I'm sure you do not have access to. If trying teh new-host scheme does not work, I'd maybe call up your IT dept. again and ask if they can give your iPhone a distinct name that you can then use to enter when you login.

Hope this at least gets you started on the right track.


PS- I see in your info box, you are in Vet school? Very cool. Besides Iphones, computers, cars, and music, I volunteer with a local rescue and have 6 rescue pets of my own (5 cats and 1 dog)

[sziklassy]

Thanks for all the time you have put into helping me with this issue. I tried what you said, and gave up at 50 (so i tried registering with 1-50). The IT dept. closed by the time I was able to get there, so I will have to try tomorrow. I'll leave an update when I can. Thanks again!