News

Brand-new Wifi service fails...

by Guy J Kewney | posted on 14 February 2009

If you are looking for a hotel with Wifi, the Eurostar Cristal Palace here in Barcelona does have a good service - no charge. But don't arrive yesterday...

Your faithful reporter checked in last night. The WiFi service "just worked" right away; switch on, select HCRISTAL as the SSID, and browse.

This morning, last night's settings didn't work. But can I persuade this Vista box to ask for new ones? No, I can't. It is possible to take a PC into my room and log onto the same wireless access point, and browse the web; but not my PC.

The reception staff say "The default gateway is wrong." Clearly, they're right! - they have a different setting. Their setting works, and they get a different DNS server address, and then they have access to the Internet, too. I can't ping DNS.

Staff all speak excellent Spanish. I don't. So here I am, in the internet cafe, freezing my arse off...