How to connect to free wi-fi when it doesn’t identify the network

Lately I have been getting really frustrated with my local coffee shops and their so-called free wi-fi. I’ll have my expensive specialty coffee purchased, laptop out, wireless mouse warmed up, and a flippin explanation icon displayed on my wireless adapter. I’ll look around the room and ask another person if they are on wi-fi, and their sarcastic looking response, is like, well yeah of-course! What the hell! My laptop says it connects yet I cannot get internet access. When I look at the DHCP address it has the good old APIPA address listed (169.254.0.1). Ok so I’m thinking, I am connected to the wireless router yet I cannot get an ip address assigned from its DHCP server, that could mean it has simply ran out of available IP addresses to hand out. This makes perfect sense if they simply plugged the router in, set the SSID, and called it a day. Why? Well the default DHCP configuration on wireless routers default to a maximum of 50 DHCP leases with a 24 hour lease time. So if a coffee shop is getting up to 50 connections a day, it is most likely running out of leases to hand out and bam, no DHCP for you!

Of course the solution to this problem is for coffee shop to set the DHCP lease time to 2 hours. Problem solved. However, that ain’t happening. So here I am thinking I have to find a way to get on this damn thing. I just spent four bucks for a damn eggnog latte and I’ll be if I’m sitting here for two hours with no wi-fi!

The Solution

What are 98% of all wireless routers gateway address? 192.168.1.1. Knowing this, here is how to manually connect to the wireless router in the situation where you are connected yet cannot get assigned an IP address.

1. Go to the properties of your wireless adapter on your laptop. There are several ways to get there depending on your laptop. If all else fails do this:
   1. Click Start or the Windows Icon
   2. Click Run or, hold down Windows-R, and type in the command bar: ncpa.cpl
   3. Up comes your network configuration. Right click on your wireless adapter and choose properties
2. Click on the TCP/IP (IPV4 if that is an option) and choose properties
3. Click on Alternate Configuration
4. Fill in the settings. This may be a bit of trial and error since an ip address has to be picked that isn’t used. Typically .110 or higher will be free.
   1. IP Address:  192.168.1.110
      Default gateway: 192.168.1.1
      Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
5. Now the good part. A DNS entry is needed. Since we have no idea what that might be for the WAN of the wireless modem, we must assign our own. The good news is OpenDNS has a public DNS that we can use.
   1. Primary DNS: 208.67.222.222
   2. Secondary DNS: 208.67.220.220
      
      addendum: As an alternate to above, Google now has a public DNS:
      
      Primary DNS: 8.8.8.8
      Secondary DNS: 8.8.4.4

Save that and try to access the internet. With any luck you will be in. If not then there are a couple of possibilities.

1. Try a different IP address. Change the 4th octet to a higher number. Try that a few times.
2. If a no go then try another default IP address scheme:
   1. IP Address: 192.168.2.110
      Default gateway: 192.168.2.1
      or
   2. IP Address: 172.22.6.110
      Default gateway: 172.22.6.1

I would be willing to bet that 99% of the time the default gateway will be 192.168.1.1.

So the next time you are somewhere with free wifi, you can get connected but can’t get an ip address assigned, try an alternate configuration and get in anyway!

Don’t forget about your alternate configuration setting. Should you have issues connecting elsewhere you may need to clear that out!