LHR Clubhouse - Wifi and Upgrade cost

Had to go old school and connect my MBP to the network by means of a VA cable.

The WIFI account appears to be not working today, and T-Mobile are investigating. Apparently it was not working well yesterday either.
They did want to send an engineer, but I'm pretty convinced it's an account issue at the T-Mobile end.

Also, very quiet in the lounge today.

Was also offerred an upgrade from PE to UC for £900 at checkin, this was the first time I have been offerred that, as the PE ticket was only £500 and I'm on business, I did not take up the offer.

Have a good day everyoone.

Mark

Originally posted by ukcobra
The WIFI account appears to be not working today, and T-Mobile are investigating. Apparently it was not working well yesterday either.
They did want to send an engineer, but I'm pretty convinced it's an account issue at the T-Mobile end.

Nah, it's been variously nadgered for a while now. Especially at the library end. I think some access points keep rebooting or there's some other 2.4Ghz signal stamping on the wifi.

Mike

I could never log in anywhere in the lounge BAR the Library.

With regards to the possible interferance.... Only ever seen two other wifi networks available in there, both with poor signal strength. 802.11b/g has stuff in it that will allow for other networks to be on the same channel. Yes, you'll get pants throughput, but it will work.

Originally posted by woggledog
I could never log in anywhere in the lounge BAR the Library.

With regards to the possible interferance.... Only ever seen two other wifi networks available in there, both with poor signal strength. 802.11b/g has stuff in it that will allow for other networks to be on the same channel. Yes, you'll get pants throughput, but it will work.

I wasn't talking about 802.11b/g-compliant 2.4GHz, I was thinking about some other thing operating in the 2.4GHz spectrum that steps on the wifi signal, which of course wouldn't be visible if you 'wardrove' the Clubhouse area, but would appear on a spectrum analyser.

Mike

Mike, what else could be operating at 2.4 in an airport?

Apart from Bluetooth and DECT?

Maybe they've got the router next to the microwave in the kitchen? [:?]

[mitchja]

Apparently they have set up a grid system using only 2 wireless access points (1 at either end of the CH) to allow access throughout the Clubhouse but not to outside areas and due to problems with the ceiling design and the fact VS didn't want any access points on display it looks like they still have some problems to smooth out yet though.

There's more info on the system in this article

Regards

[RichardMannion]

Originally posted by mitchja
Apparently they have set up a grid system using only 2 wireless access points (1 at either end of the CH) to allow access throughout the Clubhouse but not to outside areas and due to problems with the ceiling design and the fact VS didn't want any access points on display it looks like they still have some problems to smooth out yet though.

There's more info on the system in this article

Regards

I happen to know someone who looks after the network for BAA, and I've been informed of them wanting silly money to patch a socket or having a connection - BAA and their cut...

Originally posted by mike-smashing
I wasn't talking about 802.11b/g-compliant 2.4GHz, I was thinking about some other thing operating in the 2.4GHz spectrum that steps on the wifi signal, which of course wouldn't be visible if you 'wardrove' the Clubhouse area, but would appear on a spectrum analyser.

Remind me to take one of my HP/Agilent spec an's next time I fly!

I have had little more than frustration with the VS WiFi in LHR, so I usually resort to my Vodafone 3G account.

Airports in general seem to be a disaster area for WiFi. I am not sure if this is due to the demand or the number of AP's. Maybe everyone is downloading iTunes or something.

Howard

Originally posted by mitchja
There's more info on the system in this article

Interesting stuff, I hadn't seen that.

Leaky feeder is exactly the same technology they're using for in-flight cell phones. Rather than have an antenna connected to an AP, they run some coaxial cable with 'holes' in it enough to let in and out some juice, like an irrigation hose pipe with lots of holes in it.

Like all new technologies, there will inevitably be some deployment teething problems while the technology is learnt. I would have thought primarily this will suffer badly from a phenomenon known as multipath fading, in this case as people wonder about deep fades will occur perhaps big enough to drop the signal.

Also, one problem of leaky feeder systems is that the signal is inevitably going to be stronger at the AP end than at the far end, especially at 2.4GHz, so it's not necessarily always a panacea.

Thanks for the link.

Cheers, Howard

Originally posted by Howard Long
Like all new technologies, there will inevitably be some deployment teething problems while the technology is learnt. I would have thought primarily this will suffer badly from a phenomenon known as multipath fading, in this case as people wonder about deep fades will occur perhaps big enough to drop the signal.

I'm wondering if there could be some sort of cancellation effects going on, judging by the regularity with which I get signal drops in the Clubhouse, even when sitting in the same place - for me it seems pretty bad (almost every 5 minutes) at the far end, near the Library and "The Den" areas, yet seems significantly more stable (i.e. 30 minutes with no drops) in the "viewing gallery" area behind the bar.

Either that, or the roaming between the APs isn't seamless, and in some areas of equal signal, your station isn't sufficiently sticky to a single AP and flip-flops between the two.

Mike

[Bazz]

Whilst not fully following all the points raised by my two learned colleagues [:?], I do agree that the drop out at the library end is far worse that at the other end or in the ex-smoking area [?]. The technical reasons for this will always be the prerogative of our more learned IT members.

I can't believe that they charge for wifi when they don't charge for food, drinks, treatments, etc.

[Nottingham Nick]

Originally posted by razbox
I can't believe that they charge for wifi when they don't charge for food, drinks, treatments, etc.

When did they start to charge for wi-fi?

The T-mobile hot spots are free in the CH and there are lots of laptops to use - all free.

Nick

They used to charge for the Wi-Fi, and then made it free around March time I believe. I certianly got charged from December, Jan and Feb.

The wired connections are free and do not suffer from drop outs, so in future I'll be sure to pack a Cat5 cable.

The Wifi in DC, worked well with no issues (apart from it being a tad slow)

Rock solid signal in the CH today.

David

Originally posted by ukcobra
They used to charge for the Wi-Fi, and then made it free around March time I believe. I certainly got charged from December, Jan and Feb

Cool...I learnt something, thanks