Wifi won't work in areas not covered by AT&T

[cdbeckman]

At my workplace, half of the first floor is not covered by AT&T due to the structure of the building. I happen to have my desk in this area of the building. Now, we have wifi covering the whole building. When I walk to the half of the building that works with AT&T, the wifi kicks in and everything works great. But when I go into the area only covered by AT&T (my desk), suddenly safari complains about not having access to edge and nothing works. This is despite having full wifi bars. Anybody have any ideas?

[cdbeckman]

ok an update, in one area of the building it works without AT&T with our wifi, and in another area of the building (my desk) it doesn't. What's really strange is, over in the area that does work, it gets a normal IP address in the range of our wifi. Also, when I got it to work without at&t, it started having connection to at&t and then it lost it but continued to work off of wifi. At my desk, it comes up with an IP address not in the range of our network. Bizzare!

[cdodkin]

in which case your phone is seeing someone else's wi-fi and is now on their network!

[cdbeckman]

Originally Posted by cdodkin

in which case your phone is seeing someone else's wi-fi and is now on their network!

No, it's all the same wifi network, I checked both times.

[cdodkin]

Originally Posted by cdbeckman

No, it's all the same wifi network, I checked both times.

But if it has an IP address outside of your WLAN/LAN addressing scheme, then it's seen a different DHCP server and been assigned an IP address from another network.

That network may have it's SSID hidden, so you'd need a free tool like NetStumbler to check for rogue wi-fi activity at your desk

[cdbeckman]

Originally Posted by cdodkin

But if it has an IP address outside of your WLAN/LAN addressing scheme, then it's seen a different DHCP server and been assigned an IP address from another network.

That network may have it's SSID hidden, so you'd need a free tool like NetStumbler to check for rogue wi-fi activity at your desk

No, again, it's our network. The outside IP it sets itself to is Apple's debug fake IP, the same one that OS X uses. It means that the iPhone's DHCP isn't working correctly with the router. I have tried restarting the wireless network as well. Whenever I have access to AT&T, the wifi works and goes fast, and when I don't have access to AT&T, it doesn't work.

[spacerog]

Originally Posted by cdbeckman

No, again, it's our network. The outside IP it sets itself to is Apple's debug fake IP, the same one that OS X uses. It means that the iPhone's DHCP isn't working correctly with the router. I have tried restarting the wireless network as well. Whenever I have access to AT&T, the wifi works and goes fast, and when I don't have access to AT&T, it doesn't work.

What is that IP address? If it is 169.x.x.x then it is a self assigned address. In other words the phone couldn't reach a network and gave itself an address of 169.x.x.x As you have found this is not a routable address.

If the address is anything else and it is outside your normal companies addressesing scheme then you have a rogue DHCP server on the network spewing out bad addresses. Look for someones misconfigured laptop or a WAP someone brought in from home.

- SR

[cdbeckman]

It's a 169.x.x.x address, and it only happens when I connect to this wifi and can't see AT&T's network. It's really strange, every other wifi device works, my old windows mobile phone worked on this network, and the iPhone will work- If it can see edge the wifi and DHCP will work, or if you assign it it's own IP outside the DHCP range it will suddenly work with the wifi. However, you have to keep moving the assigned IP every time you connect or it will stop working. I'm stumped and now just keep wifi off while I'm at work- helps conserve a lot of batteries. However, I would still like to get this to work.