Friday, February 08, 2008

Shooting Craps at Crown Center, or the 6 O'Clock Surprise

I'm currently in the Crown Center atrium, and I'm having another of those deja-vu-all-over-again moments. As longtime fans here recall, this was one of the first locations I profiled on this blog, and it's been one of my favorites ever since Wi-Fi made it to KC.

However...

Those of you who recall that long-ago post, or who take the trouble to pull it up, will remember or note that I mentioned this hotspot's irritating habit of losing connectivity, which by the time of the advent of this blog had become a thing of the past-or so I had hoped. I've stopped in on Fridays a few times lately, and ye olde problem has resurrected itself, the connection to the outside world dropping right about 6 p. m. each time, which leads me to believe it has something to do with an inadvertent timer setting or something like that.

There is a way around it, for those of you knowledgeable about how to set up TCP/IP on a client manually-but I'd better stop there, since such knowledge can in some cases serve mischief as well as good. Because the hotspot here is open and publicly available-and advertised as such-I don't have any ethical qualms about doing this. Nonetheless, I'd prefer Crown Center to get its DHCP working again like it should.

I've mentioned the problem to the nice gentleman in the information booth, who advises that what I'm seeing is not the result of a policy change; the network is supposed to stay up 24/7, according to him. He dutifully left a phone message with the IT department, but also advises that there's no answer from either a human or a machine at the number on the little cardboard triangle thingies on the tables. Well, I'll stick around a bit to see what happens and let you know if anything does.

Update: Nothing did. I may try contacting Crown Center's management directly. I'll keep you posted as to the results.

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