How can I take a single hotel Wifi connection and share it out amongst devices via Wifi?

Many hotels these days still have pretty dreadful Wifi. Often the worst offender is the "you still only have one Wifi device, right?" assumption; you get a username/password combo, and using it on device B when device A is already logged in either boots you off device A, or fails on login.

What I'd like is a nice portable solution that takes the Wifi connection, and "re-shares" it via another stable Wifi SSID in my room (yes, I assume this requires two Wifi chipsets) so that I can connect from multiple devices. Is such a thing possible? There are plenty of guides on sharing Ethernet to Wifi, or vice versa, but I can't find anything that covers Wifi-to-Wifi.

To be more specific, I normally travel with:

• A MacBook
• An iPhone
• An iPad

(although it would be most useful to have a solution that doesn't specifically depend on any one of those).

So what I'd like is a gadget that has two Wifi connections - one so that it can connect to the hotel wifi, and another to re-broadcast it via an access point under my control. The gadget can be software (runs on a device like one of the above), or hardware (a separate access point/router/etc. that I carry around)

Requirements:

• The ability to login via a web console - the usecase I'm trying to solve here typically requires that.
• Inbuilt NAT/DHCP etc. so the gadget manages the "re-shared" Wifi network.

Nice to haves:

• Re-shares the wifi connection securely (WPA etc.) so that only I can connect.
• Doesn't require an extra AC adapter
• The ability to connect an Ethernet cable instead for stone-age hotels that still don't have Wifi (I think just this is easier to solve, since something like an Airport Express will do this - but that doesn't solve the original Wifi-to-Wifi case).
• The ability to emit regular keepalives of some sort to stop the hotel Wifi connection dying, being lost etc. if I don't use it for a while - they are often unreliable and disconnect easily.

Is such a thing possible? Does it exist? Can I construct one? Alternatively, can I purchase one outright? How would I pick something appropriate and what should I look for?

Solution 1:

Ethernet to WiFi sharing can be done through OS X. Instructions here:

http://www.maclife.com/article/howtos/how_share_your_wireless_internet_connection_ethernet

As for WiFi to WiFi, using an additional WiFi dongle connected to the laptop would probably be easiest, but it may be possible to share the connection over the iPad or iPhone's USB cable if they're jailbroken. I think apps exist for this, but I'm not sure as don't own an iOS device. If it is possible, you could connect to the network using the iDevice, share that connection to the laptop, and then share that connection over WiFi again.

The simplest solution however is to buy something like this wireless repeater:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=33-704-049

That will take an ethernet or WiFi connection and share it over wireless. This solution is the most expensive, but it doesn't depend on any of your existing devices to work.

Solution 2:

One solution is to buy a USB Wireless adapter with "soft(ware) AP" (AP stands for "access point") feature. It's up to you to find it, as it's forbidden per SuperUser rules to be specific with which device to buy.

Note: Be sure to check if this feature is supported on your operating system.

Solution 3:

If you ever find yourself in the position of having a rooted (jailbroken) Android device handy, there's an app called "fqrouter2" which can connect to a wi-fi network and share the connectivity on its own network with a different SSID by using the android hotspot functionality.

It's a good idea to plug in the phone being used as a router, though, because it uses battery rather fast. Also don't be surprised to find it warm to the touch.

I used mine this way while on vacation with friends because the Wi-fi of the hotel was only really usable near the door of the room, so I sacrificed my phone usage so everyone could have internet. I used my computer instead :) No whatsapp, but I still had facebook and youtube.