|
Wireless LAN facility is available through the Sungate Hotel. For the benefit of
the PP-06, a dedicated Wireless LAN will be installed in the Vega Convention
Centre, allowing Delegates to have guaranteed bandwidth (2 x 50 mbps) to access
the Internet during the conference period. Outside the conference area,
Delegates will be using the wireless LAN facility offered by the hotel. The
wireless LAN is IEEE 802.11a/b/g compliant. The client card must be Wi-Fi
compliant, which assures interoperability between vendors. For client
configuration, setting the SSID to “PORTROYAL” should be sufficient.
There are no other special requirements for connecting to the wireless facility
on the PP-06 wireless network. The wireless LAN is not meant to be a secured
environment, so users should take their own measures to protect his or her data.
Delegates can connect to this wireless network using their laptops with a
wireless card. Any Wi-Fi certified wireless card can be used, although we
recommend using cards from known vendors to minimize problems and
troubleshooting.
Buying a Wireless Card
Before buying a card, you should check Wi-Fi compatibility by looking for
the distinctive Wi-Fi CERTIFIED logo on the card or by visiting the
http://www.wi-fi.com
website and verifying that this card model is compatible. The Wi-Fi Alliance
tests the interoperability of 802.11 wireless products. Any Wi-Fi certified
wireless card can be used.
Look for the card with a logo that looks like the following:
Please note that all 802.11a/b/g standard compliant cards are not
necessarily Wi-Fi compliant, whereas Wi-Fi compliant cards are 802.11a/b/g
compliant. The main concern when you buy a wireless card should be that you
might be sold cards from old stock which will have 802.11b compliance but
not Wi-Fi compliance.
Installing the Wireless Card Software
To install the wireless card driver, you may need to login with
administrator privileges depending on operating system and card purchased.
Please consult the installation instructions that came with your card for
details of installation. Usually you need to install (a) the card driver
and (b) some client utilities to check radio reception levels.
Driver installation is usually quite easy: put the installation CD in the
drive, run the setup program and follow the simple instructions provided.
Sungate Specific Wireless Configuration Parameters
Normally your wireless LAN card will be able to locate the wireless
network automatically. If necessary, set your card to associate with the “PORTROYAL”
SSID.
- Set your case-sensitive SSID as “PORTROYAL”.
- If needed, set the Client Name (usually the user’s name or his
machine name) required by some drivers.
- Check that DHCP is enabled for the client so that you will get IP
address and other network parameters automatically.
Encryption is not used.
Important Reminders
- The user is advised to use wireless networks with caution. It is up
to the user to protect his or her own data.
- For security you should use end-to-end encryption technologies such
as VPN to keep your communications safe.
- Personal firewall software, such as ZoneAlarm or Tiny Personal
Firewall, is very helpful to mitigate the spread of malware. You will
need to invest some time learning these tools.
- The use of wireless access points other than those pre-installed in
the Centre is prohibited. If you have personal access points, please do
not use them inside the Conference Centre.
- Please take care that you configure your wireless in Infrastructure
Mode, not in Ad-Hoc Mode (also known as Peer Mode).
- All wireless users must have a good virus scanning program that has
up-to-date virus database. Viruses can easily spread in the wireless
network.
- You will also need a few spyware detection programs such as
Ad-Aware.
- From applications point of view, wireless connections are good for
web browsing but not so good for big file transfers.
- Before taking out your external wireless card (or any other PC Card
device from its slot), you should first properly stop it.
- Wireless cards do drain power from your laptop (sometimes quite
significantly).
Wireless Troubleshooting
Here are a few practical tips to troubleshoot your wireless connection.
You may need administrator privilege for some of the fixes.
- Make sure that your card is 802.11a/b/g compliant and Wi-Fi Forum
certified by visiting the
www.wi-fi.com site and choosing Certified Products. Wi-Fi Certified
means the card should be interoperable between different vendors products.
- Make sure you have the latest software driver for the wireless card by
visiting the manufacturer’s support site. If not, install the new driver.
- You should have PORTROYAL as your SSID, which is case-sensitive.
- Check that the client is in "infrastructure" mode and not in "ad-hoc"
(peer-to-peer) mode. You should manually define PORTROYAL as your SSID so
that you do not accidentally connect to misconfigured ad-hoc stations. To
protect yourself from ad-hoc stations, in Windows XP, use All Programs >
Connect To > Show All Connections. Right mouse-click on your wireless card
and select Properties. In the Wireless Network Connection Properties window
choose Wireless Networks tab and then the Advanced button. Here, choose
Access point (infrastructure) networks only radio button.
- DHCP for the wireless card should be turned on. Make sure that your IP
parameters all come from DHCP server and not from fixed settings - you can
display it with the ipconfig /all command. If your IP address looks like
169.254.x.x, please restart your DHCP client.
- Check the routing table with the netstat -rn command. If you see some
strange default routes it may be because of some fixed IP settings and you
will have to take off these fixed settings.
- Please make sure that you have disabled WEP or WPA encryption. If you
have received an IP address but cannot connect, this may be because
encryption might have been enabled by mistake.
- If you are using a multiband wireless card, please do not use "auto"
mode, otherwise it may flip from one band to another.
- If your laptop has Bluetooth enabled then your 802.11a/b/g card may not
work well - please disable Bluetooth.
- Make sure that your web proxy configuration is set to off.
- Make sure you do not have a local proxy server running on your machine.
Turn IIS service, Web Publishing service off. Microsoft Web Proxy can be
turned off from Control Panel. If you can ping a web server but cannot
browse this site, this step should fix this problem.
- Make sure a local firewall, such as Zone Alarm, is not blocking the
connection.
- Some cards don't work unless a station ID (or Client Name) is set
(station ID cannot be blank).
- If IBM Access or some wireless client utility (in some cases) is being
used to configure wireless, please turn Wireless Zero Config service off.
|
