I have one of those cool new Apple Airport express.

I'm at a hotel with wired broadband that you purchase by the day by
opening the browser and agreeing to the charge.  I want to attach my
Airport to create a wireless environment, but while I can connect to
the airport, nothing happens when I open the browser.

Any suggestions?

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Clarification of Question by r2-ga on 14 Aug 2004 13:44 PDT

I think joy-ga's comment is right-on.  can someone answer the question
bu telling me how to simulate a MAC address on a Apple Airport
Express?

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Clarification of Question by r2-ga on 19 Aug 2004 15:03 PDT

Yes, but thats where the problem lies.  When I try to connect through
the Airport Express the connection is dead.  Oh well, back to the
drawing board.

The internet providers usually don't want routers running rampant in
the hotel rooms.
If you call the internet provider support line(usually listed on your
hotel room coffee table), they might provide some temporary manual IP
address information that might help you in connecting if you are
having trouble.  However, they won't likely assist you if they know
it's for a wireless router(which you would want to make a closed
network).

I'm not familiar with the intricacies of the AirPort, but I'm guessing
the hotel is restricting usage by MAC Address (the hard-coded number
associated with each ethernet card).

Since you signed up with your laptop, it registered that MAC address. 
Your Airport has a different MAC address and so it's not working. 
Most wireless routers will let you enter a fake MAC address.  If you
change the AirPort's MAC address to be the same as your laptop, I'm
guessing it will work.

To find your laptop's MAC address, enter DOS:

1. Start: Run: enter "cmd", press ENTER
2. Type "ipconfig /all"
3. Scroll down and note what's listed as "physical address"
    - it will be something like 00-00-00-00-00-00

Then, go into your Airport's configuration and tell it to "spoof the
MAC address" or "change the external WAN MAC address" or "mimic a
different MAC address" (something along these lines).  Enter in what
you noted from above.

Now, if you sign up in a hotel room with your laptop, you can
immediately switch over to your AirPort.

--Joey

I did some searching around, and it seems the AirPort (unlike every
other wireless router known to man) may not allow you to change the
MAC address.

One solution to this could be for you to hook up your AirPort FIRST,
then connect through it to sign up for service.  That way, when you
sign up for service in the hotel room, the hotel's servers would see
the AirPort's MAC Address when you sign up and allow it.  You'd then
have to connect through the AirPort, and wouldn't be able to connect
directly after that.

--Joey

Does anyone know how to change the MAC address on an AirPort Express?
My daughter wants to use her AirPort Express in her dorm and the ports
do MAC filtering based on a browser login. So I think we need to login
via the iBook and then plug in the AirPort with it set to the iBook's
MAC address.