2Wire Dual SSID BT Business Hub and WPA

[LesD]

I expect this has been asked and covered before but as it is all new to me I will have to ask again! 

My wife has obtained a hp Compaq Laptop and having no experience of wireless connections, being an advocate of copper conductors, in the first instance my son helped her connect to my 2Wire 2700HGV Dual SSID BT Business Hub using its WEP key. 

Having swatted up on matters Wireless I read that WPA is deemed to be more secure so I have just entered the WPA key in place of the WEP one and find that there is limited or no connectivity with this one.  Putting the WEP key back the Laptop connects just fine again.

Having had the experience there are stirrings of a memory that maybe somewhere on the forum I read that WPA only works with BT BB Accounts.
Is this true or am I having another senior moment? 

[Ted]

WPA WPA2 work just fine with the 2700. Make sure the security settings are the same on both the router and the laptop. Also check the encryption method is the same, ie, TKIP or AES, whatever it is on the router. I had a problem with that on Vista

[LesD]

WPA WPA2 work just fine with the 2700. Make sure the security settings are the same on both the router and the laptop. Also check the encryption method is the same, ie, TKIP or AES, whatever it is on the router. I had a problem with that on Vista

Thanks for the quick reply Ted. I see WPA and WPA2 PSK options in the Wireless configuration of the 2700 but I shall have to wait for the Laptop to be free again before I can go looking for where this is in its configuration. Another voyage of discovery but it keeps the grey matter working! 

[Steve]

I think if you delete the previous WEP wireless connection in Vista it should detect the encryption automatically then all you need is the passcode. I've had problems with Vista in the past with passcodes when a previous connection of the same SSID already existed. I think you'll find it under manage wireless connections if my memory serves me correctly.

[Ted]

That's exactly it Steve, didn't delete the WEP connection and Vista hadn't changed the encryption type, took me half an hour of head scratching to figure it out. 
I believe if you right click on the connection and go to properties you can change the setting there, I can't check, the laptop has migrated to Uni. 

[LesD]

I think if you delete the previous WEP wireless connection in Vista it should detect the encryption automatically then all you need is the passcode. I've had problems with Vista in the past with passcodes when a previous connection of the same SSID already existed. I think you'll find it under manage wireless connections if my memory serves me correctly.

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the input but Laptop is running XP Pro so it is not a Vista issue but it looks like it will be tomorrow before I get to try again!

[Ted]

Probably still best to delete the old WEP connection Les, start from a clean slate, just to rule out the possibility of corrupt settings  

Edit:

I seem to remember that in XP, I had to download a WPA client update, from MS, for my wife's HP, to make it compliant, just a thought. I,ll see of I can check what it was.

[LesD]

Probably still best to delete the old WEP connection Les, start from a clean slate, just to rule out the possibility of corrupt settings  

Edit:

I seem to remember that in XP, I had to download a WPA client update, from MS, for my wife's HP, to make it compliant, just a thought. I,ll see of I can check what it was.

OK will do. I thought I had because I brought up the two boxes where you enter the values and the row of black dots were visible so I selected them and overwrote the previous entry then entered the WPA for the second time in the box below.

I did the same to go back to the WEP and this worked but I guess if what I did had not properly deleted it in the first place this might be why it was OK.

I will see if I can find any info about the client you mention too. Thanks for your input.

[Ted]

I believe this was the one I used. http://www.microsoft.com/DOWNLOADS/details.aspx?familyid=662BB74D-E7C1-48D6-95EE-1459234F4483&displaylang=en

Worked great for me, yours may not be the same issue, as I say, just a thought.

[LesD]

I believe this was the one I used. http://www.microsoft.com/DOWNLOADS/details.aspx?familyid=662BB74D-E7C1-48D6-95EE-1459234F4483&displaylang=en

Worked great for me, yours may not be the same issue, as I say, just a thought.

Thanks Ted I will get it after lunch and let you know how I get on.

[LesD]

Other events overtook me and I did not get back to trying to get the WPA wireless connection working between my wife's hp Compact nc6220 and my Dual SSID 2 Wire 2700HVG until last evening.

I went to the Wireless settings page in the 2700 and one at a time tried all of the WPA options, WPA TSK, WPA TSK & WPA2 TSK, and WPA2 TSK etc I tried each of these options with the WPA key from the label on the bottom of the 2700 but did not get connected.

The top option, open or none I forget what is it called works fine with the WEP or WPA key as does WEP Shared but I really want to use the more secure 128 bit encrypted WPA option.

I followed the link Ted posted and read the MS KB Article associated with it that led me to a later download namely 917021 so I had this one instead but when I tried to install it I was told my service pack was already newer than this one and the install aborted. I have XP's SP3 installed and all patches were up to date as of about 10 days ago.

What I am not sure about is how to make sure the original WEP connection is completely removed before attempting to connect with the WPA Key and which of the various options the 2700 wireless settings page offers to me. I have disconnected but I am sure this is the same as removing.

All help and advice would be very much appreciated.

[Rik]

This is the setup screen from mine, Les. Once you've selected WPA2 and a custom key, you will be fine.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[LesD]

Thanks Rik I will give it another go but with a Custom Key this time.

What are the rules for creating a Custom Key?

That is can it be alpha numeric, if so are upper and lower case letters allowed and how many Characters/Digits are permitted in total?

[Rik]

Alpha-numeric is fine, upper and lowercase. I believe you can go up to 63 characters.

[LesD]

Thanks I will give it a go but 63 seems more than I would go for.

[Rik]

Me too, all that typing gets hard.

[LesD]

Magic Rik and I even managed to avoid the typing

I found a website that auto-generated keys that let you choose the number of characters to use. I picked 32 but now I know it works I should have gone for more but it's OK for the moment and certainly better than the WEP one.

I copied my new Custom key that had been generated to Wordpad and saved and printed the page.

I made the page in my 2700 look more or less like yours and pasted in the key then clicked the Submit button and closed IE8.

I copied the file with the new Custom key in it to a memory stick and took it to the Laptop.

The Laptop could no-longer connect with the default WEP key it had been using so I pasted in my new Custom one in both the boxes I am presented with and clicked the Connect button. Hey presto job done.

Why the default WPA key from the label on the 2700 doesn't work I don't know but I was going to have a Custom one in the end anyway so all's well.

With the copy and paste technique a max length 63 character one would be no problem either.

If you didn't want to trust the website you could generate four say and quarter them and piece together a new one from the bits but I haven't gone there myself well not yet.

Thanks for the guidance once again.

[Rik]

Glad to help, Les.

[LesD]

Just for the sake of completeness if anyone else wants to generate a Custom WPA Key this is the website I used.

[Sebby]

[LesD]

Further to the foregoing all is well with my WPA wireless access but when I look at the various Wireless Networks in Range I see a BT Fusion one that ends with the last four digits of my Router's serial number, very similar to my active one that ends with the last three digits of my serial number.

I guess my 2700HGV Router must be broadcasting for this BT Fusion option to be visible. What is this about and what's it for? Is this one secure as I have not set a key for it? I am sure there are many who will be able to tell me. 

[Lance]

It is secure I believe but you can easily turn it off. I think it's on the right hand side of the lical network settings screen, where you can also turn of the USB port if you so desire. 

[MisterW]

I guess my 2700HGV Router must be broadcasting for this BT Fusion option to be visible. What is this about and what's it for? Is this one secure as I have not set a key for it?

This http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BT_Fusion will explain all about BT Fusion.
Yes, it is secure, WPA encryption is enabled on the Fusion wireless ( and you can't disable it ), with a default key ( which you can change ) and default SSID ( again changeable ). Basically it provides a separate wireless network, with a different IP subnet, which can be useful under some circumstances. As Lance says, you can enable/disable it from the 'Local Network' settings page.
Hope that helps.

[LesD]

Thanks Lance and MisterW the Wiki page is great but I can't see where to disable the Fusion under Local Network Settings!  

I went all through there before posting the question about BT Fusion. To save me posting my Wireless Setting Page it is just like the one Rik posted way above at Reply #11 in this thread and I can see nothing about Fusion on it!

What am I missing?

Ah this edit is because I now know what I was missing I was here: http://home/xslt?PAGE=J46&THISPAGE=J01&NEXTPAGE=J46
not there: http://home/xslt?PAGE=C01

I rarely go "there" so I was a bit slow on the uptake sorry about that.

I have disabled the Fusion option as I don't currently have a use for it.  

[Lance]

Glad you got there in the end!