Secrets of the City

You should try changing the channel on your local router. I forget what channel the USI network is on, but if you pick something else you should have a cleaner line.

I’ve done all the standard fixes. USI is on channel 1. It doesn’t seem to help. I think they have some sort of iNapalm or something working.

I don’t know about the network messing upings, I usually don’t have a problem connecting to other networks, but I do know that the City roaming connection is complete and utter crap, no matter where I am. I don’t even know why I pay for it. It often infuriates me to the point of wanting to break stuff.

In a word, no. Every gadget I’ve thrown at the WiFi connection has worked with my WPA network, from the tiny T-Mobile G1 right up to the TiVo HD.

For what it’s worth, I use DD-WRT 2.3 on an older Linksys WRT54G and basic WPA authentication.

I had this same problem, but only with a Mac using Airport. The PC in our house connected to our local wireless network without a problem, the Mac constantly flaked. After researching and working with USI, they finally gave up, and so did I. Back with Comcast cable now and at least within our house, it works fine.

The problems I am having are with a Mac / Airport. I don’t use USI as a service provider; I use Comcast. And I have a hopless feeling as soon as I read “Mac, Airport, Flaky”. Grrrr. Thanks for the comments though

I use a Mac and Airport with USI; and about the only thing I’ve noticed with regularity is that around 11p to midnight there seems to be a 1 or 2 minute window where the WAN connection goes down.

I’m having a separate issue with network speed that they’ll be out on Friday to take a look at.

My macbook has been shitting out of me with the wireless connection lately, but I dunno if I’d blame USI as much as my connection. Bleh.

I found a simple fix for the USI wireless problems…I moved to St. Louis Park.

Connecting to that wifi using a macbook sucked balls and I was line of site less than 100 feet from the antenna.

How much does USI charge for Minnewapolis wireless?

USI intersects the University coverage. Thus, there are several buildings on campus that can see USI’s signal. Yet, we don’t have many issues connecting to our local network.

My guess is that this is Mac specific. You can set up a Windows Machine to basically only connect to specific wireless SSIDs. I am not sure if this is possible with a Mac. With the varying signals recieved by the wireless card on the computer, it may think — Oh! Here is a stronger signal I can latch onto. But, it is on a completely different network. Thus, it drops you. Then it finds out that that wasn’t right, and reconnects you to your usual network. Then you go on.

If you can tell your computer to NOT connect to USI wireless, then your problems may be solved. It’s easy in Windows, but I don’t know if it can even be done on a Mac.

You should be able to do that, though I’d have to look up how to do that. I use a wireless home network with my macs and a Netgear wireless router connected to my cable modem. I can “see” a number of other networks (presumably other home networks)in airport, but I’ve never had a problem connecting to my home network, or with any interference from the other networks.

I am having the same problems with my brand-new MacBook, an airport, and Comcast. Sometimes pages take forever to load. Other times videos don’t play at all. Admittedly the airport is old, about five years or so, but I don’t understand enough about it to know what this means, if anything.

So what is the solution?

If you can tell your computer to NOT connect to USI wireless,…

Doug, you realize people like me will just look at her computer, shake a finger admonishingly and say aloud “Do NOT connect to USI wireless!”

The old DouglasG computer flimflam fix, the oldest nonworking fix in the book.

So what is the solution?

don’t use Macs.

Like any person of intelligence, I use only Macs. I’ve been having problems with my router lately, but I don’t think it’s related to USI.

Molly, I occasionally experience similar things and I am not using wireless. Comcast has been a bid erratic lately, but it has been a couple of days.

We’ve had several Airports last several years. They have been replaced by technology that will do more recent standards. 802.11n anyone?

If your airport is not password protected, then you may be sharing that shaky bandwidth with a neighbor. Thus, that would compound the problem.

My Mac has 10.5 on it, so your mileage may vary. If you pull down the menu from the wireless icon on top. (The cone of arcs…) One of the items is like “Show Network Properties…” or some such. Select that one. On the left side of the window, there is another Apple Airport icon. (The cone of arcs). Select that. Then press the “Advanced…” button. There will be a list of networks that you have connected to. Remove “USI Wireless” if it is in the list. You may want to also remove other networks that you can see from your residence. Make sure your personal network is on the top. This should solve some problems.

Neither of my Macs have problems. One is a generations-ago MacBook, the other is the previous-generation MacBook Pro. Both run Leopard, zero problems.

Neither of my Macs have problems. One is a generations-ago MacBook, the other is the previous-generation MacBook Pro. Both run Leopard. Nobody in here is getting me too thrilled about replacing my router with a Time Machine.