[atomicwaste12]

Hi

Since there are so many techies on this site, I guessed I should post this question 1st here.

BT have let me down on a line move and I have a business without telephones in my new premises.

Since I am a BT broadband customer I have the privilege of having access to their BT-Wifi hotspots. Now this is the attempted clever pants idea I have had.

My phones run on IP, since I can access the local hot-spot how can I wirelessly connect to the internet and then by LAN allow my phones to connect to my phone server (3CX) and out to the big bad world.

This requires the phone server to have the hotspot ip via wireless and then to connect to the local ethernet LAN via cable. So in other words 2 connections. I can't get my head around this issue.

I hope this makes sense and your help is so needed.

Thanks.

[EndlessWaves]

I'm not quite clear on what the requirements are.

If the phones need a LAN connection to the phone server and the phone server needs an internet connection then that's likely to be possible by getting your phone server to act as a router.

Looking up '3CX' it appears to be windows-based software. If that's the case then this is possible by using windows Internet Connection Sharing.

As this is a public network you should set all your security settings (windows, browser, anti-virus etc.) to treat it as the Internet rather than being more trusting as is often the default.

[atomicwaste12]

Thank you for your reply.

Yes the phones connect to the phone server via LAN cables.

The server can connect to the BT-wifi via wifi dongle.


Phones----------LAN Cat 5 Cables------------Switch---------3CX Server ====wifi Dongle======= BT Wifi

Also how can I keep the connection to the hotspot live, it seems to cut out after a few minutes of idle?

Thanks

[EndlessWaves]

Originally Posted by atomicwaste12

Also how can I keep the connection to the hotspot live, it seems to cut out after a few minutes of idle?

If the owner of the hotspot is disconnecting for inactivity then I wouldn't try and get around it but instead set up your wifi drivers to connect on demand if that option is available in their control panel.