Airport Express - Share Wireless Connection

Can the Airport Express share an already wireless connection?
Not all hotels have ethernet ports.

 

Yes; the manual tells you how to do it.

 

Are you sure? I just asked on the Apple support pages and they say it
can't.

Here's my situation; when my team goes to a hotel we don't like paying
$15 for each person to access the internet.
So I bought a Linksys WTR54GS and its utter crap and must be replaced.
It crashes when there's a large download like from youtube or CNN video.

So I'm trying to share a hotel's wireless internet connection with four
other machines - also wirelessly.

 

Are you sure? I just asked on the Apple support pages and they say it
can't.[/QUOTE]

<http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/AirPort_Express_Setup_Guide.pdf>

Connecting to an Existing Wireless Network
You can use AirPort Utility to join an existing wireless network. When you
connect your AirPort Express to your home stereo, computers on your
wireless network can use AirTunes to play music from iTunes on the stereo.
If you connect a USB printer to your AirPort Express, all of the computers
on the network can print to the printer.
Make sure you connect the audio cable to your stereo and the USB cable to
your printer before you use AirPort Utility.
To connect to an existing network:
1 Open AirPort Utility, located in the Utilities folder in the Applications
folder on a Macintosh, or in Start > All Programs > AirPort on a Windows
computer.
2 Follow the onscreen instructions to connect your AirPort Express to your
wireless network.

 

Is that more of a repeater than a router?
If I get one off ebay which one should I get?
I'm on a bit of a budget.

 

that will provide him with a single ethernet port.

he will at a minimum, need a 4-8 port switch and all members of his
team would need to share a single room. or, he would need a *second*
router to create a hotspot, fed off of that ethernet port.

 

only the 802.11n airport can bridge, but it's still not a complete
solution for what you want to do.

 

i haven't had that problem with mine at all.

 

that will provide him with a single ethernet port.[/QUOTE]

He indicated that all the computers will be connected via WiFi, didn't he?

 

yes he did, which means a single ethernet port won't help unless
there's another router to provide wifi.

 

I tried that.
It boots the first user off theinternet and redirects them to the login
page.

 

yes he did, which means a single ethernet port won't help unless
there's another router to provide wifi.[/QUOTE]

I don't follow. What does ethernet have to do with it?

 

Yes I did. But the AE can only share an ethernet connection directly to
wireless clients.
I have to share an already wireless connection. Basically I have to
make the connection I'm trying to share look like only one connection -
much like a regular cable modem router.
In regular cable modem setups the ISP only sees the router's MAC address
and thus assigns it an IP.
Thats what I want to do with the hotel connection. I want the hotel
wireless connection to "see" only the router, give it an IP address and
have a few machines behind the router have their own internal IP addresses.

 

I would suggest that if you can't afford to pay for internet access in
your hotel room, you use other locations that offer it free. Starbuck
just started doing that. Or find a hotel that offers internet access
free. The Motel 6 I stayed in recently did that.

 

I did a bit if research and it seems to be a common problem./ The only
way to fix it is get better firmware - like dd-wrt. Unfortunately the
router is so old the files aren't available anymore.

 

Thanks for the advice.
I really appreciate it.
Not.

 

airport express can join a wifi network and bridge it to ethernet.

it can only extend other airport base stations and only if the owner of
that base station decides to enable wds, neither of which is likely to
be true at a hotel.

 

If I get an AU, it will convert a wireless AP to an ethernet connection
- which doesn't do me any good.
I need to share a wireless connection.

 

it will do the reverse too, joining a wireless network and bridging it
to ethernet.

 

i don't think dd-wrt supports this router.